Temptation The Good And The Bad Of It
One of the myths of salvation is that after we are saved we will not do or say things wrong. Another is that we lost our salvation if we still sin. Or that we will never be tempted as a believer. Nothing can be further from the truth. Evern the strongest men of the faith have failed, and God forgave them and they moved on to be great men of fiath. In Hebrews we have them mentioned in what we call the "Hall of Faith" Hebrews 11:3-13
In Gen. 20:1-13 we find Abraham lying to King Abimelech by saying that his wife Sarah was his sister. Technically she was his half sister but he was saying she was not his wife. He feared that he would be killed and his wife taken so he lied.Yet Abrham is called a friend of God. In Num. 20: 8-12 Moses got angry and smote the rock instead of speaking to it there by robbing God of his glory that he wanted to show his people. There was none like Moses. God spoke to other prophets in visions and dreams but Moses He spoke to face to face.
We can speak of other men like David who sinned greatly but God said he was a man after His own heart. And Jonah who was disobedient. Then there was Peter who we might say had "hoof in mouth disease" always being found with his foot in his mouth so to speak; he cursed and swore - Matt 26:69-75 He became a great preacher and evangelist.
The bad side of temptation is its ability to entice to do evil, which can be traced in the Bible to Satan, who stands oppsed to the divine purpose of God. Satan is the ultimate source of all evil desrires and actions which are contray to the Holy love of God. He is designated the tempter in Matt. 4:3 and I Thess. 3:5. His mode of operation is clearly described in Gen 3:1-7, by using the serpant as his tool, Satan skillfully caused the downfall of mankind.
These same deceptive schemes were used against our Lord at the beginning of his ministry (Mat 4:1-11) Triumphantly Christ withstood all the evil enticements that Satan could throw at him. Jesus Christ our high priest understands our weakness for he was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. And further more in that he himself has suffered being tempted, he is able to help them that are tempted.
The good side of temptation is that of "testing" with the intent of bringing about a spiritual good. God wants to prove us to show that we are capable and dependable for ministry, for marriage, for work etc. God wants to be approving favorable toward us and to judge us to be good. He wants to improve us to make us better so we can do better. Finally He wants to reprove us, that is express disapproval of something done or said or rebuke. God is never the source of evil in any form. He tested Abraham, Job and us sometimes severely and painfully for the purpose of reproving and improving, approving and proving. He humbles us and test us for our own good. As long as we are here on earth we will be tempted (tested)
