Dealing with Temptation Wisely

Narrator (Male): Every person is going to be tempted by something. The tragedy is most people do not understand what their weaknesses are, and so they put themselves right in the position to be tempted and fall and then want to blame God and say, "Well, Lord, why did you do this and why did you allow this to happen in my life?" Listen, He does not promote temptation. And when you think about blaming God for your temptation, that is just the devil's deceptive lie. God does not tempt anybody. Is there something that continues to tempt you to sin? It may even be that you do not really understand why you keep giving in. Today on In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley, we wrap up our series on wisdom from above with instruction on how to deal with temptation wisely.
Dr. Charles Stanley: Temptation is a part of life. Everywhere you turn, people are being tempted to this and tempted to do that and tempted to do the other and usually defending their actions. All the way back in the garden, Adam and Eve yielded to temptation, and what did they do? They blamed each other. So what does the word of God say about temptation? We have been talking about wisdom, living either foolishly or wisely, and the trials of life. Now, what about wisdom for the temptations of our life? I want you to turn, if you will, to 1 Corinthians chapter 10, verse 13. No temptation. Now, what is "no"? What does that mean? Not any. No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man. That is, everybody has been tempted by many, many things. And God is faithful, who will not allow you. Look at that. Who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able. That is what you are able to deal with. He sets a limitation on our temptations. But with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, that you may be able to endure it. Now, for the unbeliever, that will not work. He is writing to believers. You do not have the promise that God is going to help you in time of temptation. If you have rejected His son, who is the source of all of the good things that come our way, the source of our salvation, and the source of our strength day by day through His indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. You cannot use that verse. But this verse should be a part of your daily life. It should be a part of your armor, a part of that wall of protection that you use daily whenever temptation comes your way. So, what I would like for us to do first of all, in order to deal with temptation, there are certain things we need to understand, and if we are going to deal with it wisely. And here is the first thing. We need to understand what it is. If somebody said to you, "Well, what is temptation anyway?" you can give them this simple, brief definition. It is an enticement of our natural God-given desires to do what? To go beyond God-given bounds. In fact, the truth is, it is just an enticement to disobey God, to rebel against Him and have it our way. So that is what it is. Now, let us ask, what is the source of this temptation, whatever it may be? Well, first of all, it is not from God. So we have to ask ourselves, where does it come from? And the Bible says that Satan is the tempter. He is the one who tempts us to be disobedient to God. Now, we need to understand the very nature of temptation if we are going to deal with it wisely. And so what you have to ask is this: Am I trying to get a need met in my life, my way and in my time? And so whatever form it may be, listen, Satan is not going to tempt you in some area he knows you are not temptable. For example, there are probably areas in all of our lives that we are not tempted. Somebody may say, "Well, have you ever been tempted to drink?" Never. "Have you ever been tempted to smoke?" Never. Satan is going to tempt you with where you are temptable. He knows you that well. So we all have areas of weakness in our life, at least have had, or it may be there even now, where Satan is going to attack. He is not going to attack you someplace that you have no desire for something whatsoever. He is going to strike at this heart, at the heart of your relationship to God. Whatever it will take to bring you, listen, in a situation with God that you are living in disobedience, that is what his goal is. His goal is to get you out of the will of God, to do whatever will bring you pleasure for the moment as a substitute of the love of God and being obedient to Him. We live in a world of sin, wickedness, violence, and you name it. And temptation is always there, and you have to decide, am I going to be obedient to God, or am I going to pay the penalty of living in sin and suffering the consequences that will be there for me? Now, we need to clear some false ideas about temptation because people do have false ideas. And they will say, "Well, you know, I am really in sin against God because I have been tempted." Watch this carefully. You listen, say amen. You better listen to all of this. A temptation within itself is not a sin. If it were, Jesus would have sinned. He was tempted in the wilderness three times Satan attacked Him, and He did not sin. Did He think about it? He had to think about it because He gave a very rational, Godly response. And He said to Satan what the consequences would be. So He was tempted. So did He sin? Absolutely not. So remember this, that being tempted itself is not a sin. It is what we do with it. Somebody says, "Well, is the best way to deal with temptation just run from it?" Well, in some situations, yes. Just get out of there. Sometimes, most of the time you cannot run, I guess you could run from your job, but sometimes you cannot. If somebody there is a temptation to you, but let us put it this way, wherever you are, if it is bringing you down and suffering the consequences of disobedience to God or leaving, you better get out. Because if you move out on the basis of a strong desire to be obedient to God, and you just have to say to Him, "Lord, I just cannot handle where I am. I need Your help. If You give me permission, God, I will go wherever You want me to go. I will trust You for whatever my need, but I cannot handle, I cannot deal. I do not feel like that I am strong enough at this point in my life to deal with this temptation." Yes. But you cannot keep running. So what we have to do is to build our defenses. So that no matter what he fires at your heart, no matter what he throws into your mind, no matter what he presents before you, you do not have to yield. And so, how does it work in our life? How does temptation work in our life? And I want to be sure you get this down, so I have made it into just simple statements. Well, it begins with a thought. All temptation begins with a thought, whatever the thought may be. And that thought builds upon an idea of fantasy or imagination. For example, you have a thought, and you fantasize about it, which means you begin to imagine. I imagine having all that money, I imagine having a sexual relationship with somebody, you imagine that. And as that imagination begins to grow, what happens? You imagine that, and before long, what are you doing? You are experiencing in your mind what you desire to experience in reality. And Satan is already at work. Then you have to make a decision because your will gets involved. Will I do this, or will I not? Will I think this way, or will I not? Then there is a choice. See, do you see how far deep in you already are? Look at that. A thought, imagination, desire, will, choice. And then there is consent, I will, and then there is sin. And if you will notice, the word consequence is not even in there. And that is what happens when a thought of temptation comes. It is just a thought. Then it becomes an imagination, then a desire, a will, a choice, and then a consent and then sin. Now, everybody has got vulnerable areas in their life. They are not the same for everybody, and you can have vulnerable areas in sometimes in your life, and sometimes you pass that, and it does not affect you anymore. You do not have to live in constant fear of being disobedient to God. You can, listen, you can make some decisions in your life that are absolute, definite decisions. This does not fit who I am. I will not tolerate this in my life. You have promised to put a limitation on all my temptation. God, I do not want that in my life. I choose by an act of obedience to You, to trust You that any time thoughts come into my mind and heart that do not match Your will for my life, I choose to let them go, and I am trusting You to empower me to identify them and to let them go. If I am going to be victorious over temptation, I have to accept the fact that I am personally responsible for what I believe and what I think and what I allow in my life. As long as you are blaming somebody else, what you are doing is you are keeping the door open for Satan. Satan says, "He made you do it. She made you do it. If this had not happened," you do not get into a conversation with the devil, because you will lose. Your conversation should be, "When the thought comes, that does not fit who I am. I choose not to do that, and I do not want the consequences of what I know that will bring." End of conversation. So, we focus on the big picture. So when you are tempted, this is his little picture. This is how pleasurable this can, this is how profitable this, everybody is doing this. This is perfectly all right. That is the little picture. Here is the big picture. Big picture, this is going to destroy my life. Big picture, this is not who I am. Big picture, do I want those consequences in my life? When you begin to ask legitimate questions that are very important, you do not want the consequences of that in your life. And see, we said before, he wants you to focus on the possible pleasure. Is it interesting? Watch this. You name it. Any pleasure or profit Satan brings to your mind is only temporary. Consequences are lasting. That is why he does not bring that up. So we have to be careful about that. And if you think about what is on in the big picture, God always has the best for His children, and He does not want you and me suffering the consequences of sin. So the truth is, He has made it very simple how we deal with it. We stop it as soon as it hits our mind and our thoughts. And this is a word I want you to write down. Four letters. Here are the times we are the most temptable. If I should ask you right now, do you have a temptation? If you were to say yes, I would say, "Okay, when are you the most temptable? When do you feel the greatest pull and tug at your life?" Well, remember this word: H-A-L-T. Halt. Do not let yourself get too hungry, too angry, too lonely, or too tired, because look at those four things. When you get too hungry, your body begins to work a certain way. Too angry, then your mind and your emotion get involved. Too lonely, you feel needy. Too tired, you just want, you just want something. That is grounds for a satanic attack. So when you start feeling something, ask yourself the question: Am I under attack, H-A-L-T? If so, what do you do? You get yourself something to eat. You lay down your anger. Call a friend or somebody you can talk to, and go take a nap. That will take all four of them. You do not have to yield if you choose not to. Now watch this. Another thing you build into your wall is this: when you get tempted, you visualize yourself doing the right thing. Otherwise, when that temptation comes and you grab it and you think, "Oh," no. You visualize yourself as doing the right thing, and you do that before the temptation comes, that when temptation comes, I am going to do the right thing. That is who I am. That is my way of life. That is the Christ whom I serve. He promised to enable me to do the right thing. And so what you do is you visualize yourself doing the right thing. Then think about it in this way: Make yourself accountable to a friend. Now this is dangerous. You have got to have a friend in whom you trust to be confidential, and there may not be many of those, so that when you find yourself being tempted, you call that friend and say, "I just want to tell you that right now I need some help. I need you to pray for me or whatever it might be." And oftentimes a friend who may have been in the situation you are in or maybe has not, but somebody that you can talk to who will encourage you and do what? Just remind you of the things that we have talked about. That person may say to you, "Do you want the consequences of that? You know what the consequences of that will be? Is that the consequence you want in your life?" And sometimes we need to hear the voice of a friend remind us of what is true and real. Then I will put it this way: You will not be able to defend yourself against satanic attacks if you ignore the word of God. You will not. This is why the best way to build that defense is in the mornings when you get up, make it one of the first things you do is get in the word of God. Somebody says, "I do not have time to read the word of God." And you know what? You just opened the door to the devil, because you said, "I do not have time to hear God this morning." Well, listen, think about who is listening to that and who is ready to attack you. That is why you need to read the word of God. And I do not mean that you need to just say, "Well, I miss him around and get you two or three verses that you know real well, read those and take off." That is not building a defense. That is building chicken wire. That is what that is. You want a fence that is filled with steel, concrete, there to stay. Without the word of God, you are not going to be able to resist him. You do not spend any time in prayer, you do not spend any time in the word of God, and you are sunk. Satan will get you if you ignore the word of God. You say, "Well, how much do I have to read?" God will show you that. You say, "Well, should I have favorite passages?" Absolutely. "Will God hear my prayer?" Yes, He will. If you are one of His children, He will listen to you. But if you do not, if you do not give Him time to speak to you. You say, "I go to church on Sunday." Well, that is not enough. You have got six other days you are under attack. This book must become, must become the guide book in your life. Somebody says, "Well, that is for getting on your knees, I do not, I do not know about all that." Well, let me just say this. Do you believe that God is who He says He is? Would you agree that that God is holy and righteous and absolutely perfect and eternal? Would you agree with that? And He is holy God? Well, if you believe that, do not you think He deserves some bit of reverence? One way to reverence God is to get on your knees and talk to Him. You say, "Well, is that the only way He will hear me?" No. It would be interesting to know how many of you are listening. Ever get on your knees and talk to God about anything. If He is who He says He is, and He is, He deserves my reverence. And the least I can do is to bow my head in His presence and talk to Him and listen to Him. You want to build a wall of defense around yourself. Now you have to decide if you will live your life victoriously, positioning yourself to receive the best of God's blessings all the days of your life. You need to learn how to deal with temptation. Now you may be listening, and you are saying, "Well, now, I am not even a Christian." Well, let me just tell you this, you do not have a chance. You do not. Only when you receive Christ as your Savior, and the Holy Spirit comes into your life to dwell, to abide, to give you guidance and direction, and to strengthen you and to empower you to say no when you need to say no. Apart from Him, you are not going to make it, because it is just you against this awesome, terrible, hostile, satanic power that all of us have to deal with. When you trust Him as your Savior, you have the Spirit of God within you. Then when you hear the principles of the word of God, then when you begin to apply them to your heart, He will empower you and enable you to live above it and to be victorious and to overcome it no matter what. And that is a choice we make. And my prayer is that you will make that choice, asking the Lord Jesus Christ to forgive you of your sins, surrendering your life to Him, acknowledging you cannot do it. Look at the consequences of your life of disobedience. It is going to get worse, not better. And if you will trust Him, you will be amazed how much better it can get. And Father, how grateful we are. You have not left us on our own, but You have given us the Holy Spirit to live within us, to enable us, to remind us, and to give us those warnings when thoughts are coming our way that do not belong to who we are. I pray, Father, sink these truths deep into the heart and life of every person who hears them. And give them hope and confidence and assurance they do not have to be defeated. Victory and defeat, choices we make. And I pray that they will make the right choice in Jesus' name. Amen.
Narrator (Male): Thanks for joining us today for In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley. You can make the choice to resist the powerful pull of temptation. It takes prayer, absorbing God's Word, and the power of the Holy Spirit. If you wonder about how to apply what you read in God's Word to your specific situation, then take some time to visit intouch.org and link over to today on radio to hear this message again. Connect to our online store to order a copy of Dr. Stanley's complete message, Dealing with Temptation Wisely, or order his teaching set, Wisdom from Above. That is intouch.org. You can also call or text 1-800-IN TOUCH. If you prefer to write, our address is In Touch, Post Office Box 7900, Atlanta, Georgia, 30357. Have you ever debated with yourself over doing something questionable and thought, "What is the harm?" Well, maybe a lot. Today's Moment with Charles Stanley is coming up. In Touch Plus is streaming on local now, featuring all the best of Dr. Charles Stanley. We are to have strong convictions based on the word of God. He is working out things that you and I would never know about in our future. In Touch Plus, your streaming network for quality Christian programming 24/7. Now watch this. In Touch Plus, streaming free on local now. Tired of faith feeling like a performance? Worn down by constant striving? Jesus never meant it to feel that way. His call was always to something more, to a life that is generous, vibrant, joyful, and sustainable, a real life with Him. That is the heart of Follow Me, our new book created to help you answer that call. Get your copy at intouch.org/followme. You are listening to In Touch. Passive decisions can have disastrous and far-reaching consequences. Here is an example in a Moment with Charles Stanley.
Dr. Charles Stanley: You are watching television, something pops up, and you know that does not fit who you are, you have a decision. You can punch the button and move on, or you can stay there and say, "Well," watch this, this is a devil, he puts this in your mouth, "Oh, I think I will see what this is like." You already know what it is like. You do not have to ask that question. You know when something is ungodly and when it is godly. And the truth is, if you know a program is ungodly to begin with, what you are doing, listen carefully, you are inviting the devil into your viewing room to be your companion. That is a decision you are making. And the power of all of that, look at the multi-multibillion dollar porno industry. You just let him in your bedroom, you let him in your study, you let him anywhere. What you are doing is you are inviting him and his disastrous results for your life. So therefore, I am not responsible for what comes through, I am responsible for whether I grab it, hold on to it, try to bring pleasure from it, or let it keep going. You have a choice.
Narrator (Male): Believers can rely on the Holy Spirit for the strength to resist temptation. Learn more about the Christian life at intouch.org. Did you learn something about investing your life in eternity? Tell us about it today. When In Touch returns, believers should live their faith 24/7. That includes on the job. Learn about how to be faithful Christians in the marketplace next time on In Touch. The teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley. This program is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia, and remains on this station through the grace of God and your faithful prayers and gifts.