Temptation

Temptation comes in many fashions

Temptation comes in various forms,

Temptation comes to sinner and saint

This is the everyday norm.

Temptation comes without warning

It does not give a sneak preview,

It comes at your strongest period

And at your weakest moment too.

Temptation will attack the vilest sinner

It will persecute the holiest saint,

Young and old are within its purview

It will seek out all and sundry to taint.

The Lord Jesus Christ was tempted

Perhaps more than any man

But he always came out victorious,

He was not of the sin-stained clan.

The Bible says that he knew no sin

He sinned in neither fashion nor form

But for every other human being

This has never been the norm.

In Matthew chapter 4 from verse 1

He confronted three temptations:

Each temptation increased in significance

Let me give a brief summation.

The first one attacked his humanity

He had not eaten for forty days,

Tempted to create bread to ease his hunger

He did not submit to the devil’s ways.

The second one was more intense

It sought to question his father’s protection:

Tempted to fall from the temple’s summit

Jesus did not fall for Satan’s deception.

The third temptation was a piece of genius

For Satan knew why Jesus had come,

He knew something else the world didn’t know

He knew that Jesus was God’s own Son.

  

Each temptation targeted his deity

But this one specifically pointed to Eden’s loss,

It was a far easier way to redeem the world

Than by going the way of the cross.

Jesus dismissed him as only Deity could

And Satan was forced to leave,

Our object and example both is Jesus

To him in our trials we can assuredly cleave.

For a good definition of temptation

James chapter 1 and verse 14 should suffice,

“But every man is tempted,” says James

“When he is drawn away of his lust and enticed.”

Note three broad categories of temptation:

The lust of the eye: that is enticement,

The lust of the flesh: that is deception

And the pride of life: that is empowerment.

First Eve saw the fruit and she was enticed

“You will not surely die,” she was deceived,

“You’ll become as God,” what empowerment!

The temptation of the mind becomes the deed.

To be like Jesus is to be pursued

But not when we are enticed Satan’s way,

His way may appear easy and often is

But there are many hidden traps and snares.

There hath no temptation taken you

But such as is common to man

God allows us only what we can handle

And with the temptation is His escape plan.

Stewart Russell © August 2018