WATCH OUT! LOOK AHEAD!

 Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone.  But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed.  Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death. Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren.  Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.  Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures.--James 1:13-18


Dear Suzanne, Rebecca, Anna and Mikayla,

In these verses James gives us five proofs to support his exhortation in verse 13 that God is not responsible for temptation and therefore not responsible for sin.  In the previous post, we looked at the nature of evil and how its very essence sets it apart from God.  

Today we will look at verse 14 and the nature of man. Verse 14 says "but each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed.  The first thing it says is that temptation does not come from God and that none of us escapes temptation...it is common to all men....no exceptions.  Then comes the "when he is drawn away and enticed part...the first term is a hunting term the second one a fishing term.  Are you feeling flattered yet?  So what are we lured away, dragged away, compelled away, beguiled away by...our own lusts. Not by God...not by Satan...who may have baited the hook...but we are drawn away by own nature which is fallen and in a part of that fallen nature is a desire for evil.  Please also notice that our lusts are individual.  We will each be tempted by our own lusts.  Some baited hooks will look better to you than others. Your hook may repel someone else or vice versa. The bottom line here is the enemy is in us...it is not God...it is not Satan...nor is it other people.  The enemy is us.  Listen to what Paul says in Romans 7 starting in verse 15: 

For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. ¹⁶ If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good. ¹⁷ But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. ¹⁸ For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. ¹⁹ For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. ²⁰ Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.

I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. ²² For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. ²³ But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. ²⁴ O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? ²⁵ I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.


Girls, even though we are saved and have the Spirit of God living inside us, we still have a problem.  We still have an enemy...our own flesh with its passions and desires. Lusts in and of themselves are not evil.  The word lusts is epithumia in the Greek, and means the desire of the soul or the strong passion of the soul. Drinking, eating, sleeping and sex are all normal God given desires necessary for survival.  Unfortunately, our God given passions even for survival, have been corrupted by our fallen nature.   It is when we try to satisfy our lusts outside of the will of God that they become sin.  


For example, my desire might be wanting uninterrupted time.  This is not  a bad thing.  We all need time when we need to think our own thoughts, pray, read and plan.  Perhaps, however, that I begin to feel that I am owed the time.  Suppose that desire begins to interfere with my normal living responsibilities and I find myself becoming impatient with those God has entrusted to my care, when I am interrupted.  Then that desire is now outside of the will of God. Why?  Because I AM SINNING TO GET IT OR SINNING WHEN I DO NOT GET IT.  

We need to keep our hearts with all diligence and control our desires and passions by seeing them in the light of what God says in His word.  Again..the answer is immersing yourself in the word...it is our only offensive weapon against our enemy. Romans 12: 2 says: "And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God."  Warren Wiersbe says our desires should be our servants not our masters.  A good saying to remember and put into practice.

The command here from your mother, girls is to WATCH OUT AHEAD...LOOK BEYOND THE MOMENT.  SEE WHAT IS UP AHEAD.  James 1:14 always reminds me of the show Lost in Space from the 1960's.  Will Robinson had a robot that would say DANGER! DANGER!  Sometimes I think we all need a robot like that to warn us away from the danger of our own desires. Imagine if we could see the effects of our sin before we committed to them.  Picture David just before he sinned with Bathsheba. Would David  have taken the bait, if he had been able to see even a portion of  the consequence of his sin...the death of his baby son and the death of  Uriah, Bathsheba's husband  by his own command?   No, he would have run in the other direction.  That is why, however, the hook is baited because it covers the sorrow that lays beneath. It deceives...Look ahead girls...see beyond the momentary pleasure to the trap that lays beneath.

I don't need anyone any extra help from anywhere to help me to sin and neither do you.  I already have the enemy in my flesh...lust...that moves toward the lure. The nature of man tells us where the problem is...in our flesh where nothing good dwells. 

Love
Mom















James tells us here that sin is not a spontaneous act but the result of a process. We are drawn away (lured) by our own desires and enticed (baited).  So like a fish in a pond we are lured to a baited hook...the hook is baited to disguise what is actually underneath.  A hook....OUCH!  The fish bites. Desire has conceived...sin is birthed.  The fish tastes the goodness of the bait for a moment but is then hooked, reeled in and left to die.  For a fish it is over in an instant.  For us it can go on for years and years until death inevitably comes, and we are facing an eternity in hell separated from God.

Warren Wiersbe breaks these two verses up into the four stages of sin and he uses words for each stage that begin with the letter "D"  This really appealed to me when I first read it and I have found it very helpful when examining my own heart.  The four stages of sin are desire, deception, disobedience and death.

I think these four are best explained using a very familiar example. Genesis 3:1-24.