Whose Fault Is Our Temptation?

James 1:13‑17

Open your Bible to James chapter 1. We're going to be looking at verses 13 through 18. James 1:13 through 18. If we do not cover all the ground tonight, we'll probably cover the remaining part next Sunday night when we will also be having a praise time and we'll somehow fit it all together for a wonderful evening, should the Lord lead us to carry on a little longer.

Look at your Bible as I read to you verses 13 through 18.

Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted by God; for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He anyone. But everyone is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin. And sin when it is complete bringeth forth death. Do not err, my beloved brethren, or do not be deceived, every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and is coming down from the Father of lights with whom is no variation, neither shifting shadow. Of His own will, begot He us with the word of truth that we should be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures.

As we approach this text, let me have you look at verse 14. It begins with these words, "But every man is tempted." All of us can give testimony to the truthfulness of that statement. Everyone is tempted. Temptation is the common experience of every human being...non‑Christian or Christian. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10 that temptations are common to man. One ancient writer said that even when we are saved, we must remember that our baptism did not drown our flesh. Temptation is common to every man...every man is tempted.

We all then face the battle of temptation. And how we deal with it is a mark of the genuineness of our faith or the lack of true saving faith. Just as how we face trials and respond to them, in verses 2 through 12 was seen as a test of genuine faith, so how we deal with temptation is also a test of genuine faith.

It is normal for unredeemed people not to accept the blame for their own sinfulness. When they are tempted and fall into sin, it is typical for them to put the blame somewhere else. Children come into the world refusing to take responsibility for their behavior. The first time you reprimand your little child for something, their initial reaction, knee‑jerk response is to say, "I didn't do it, it wasn't my fault, but you don't understand." Accepting the full responsibility for weakness in temptation is not something that men do very well. Children shirk the guilt for their own wrong and they grow up to be adults who do pretty much the very same thing. In this passage, James is saying how you respond to temptation and where you put the blame is another indicator of the genuineness of your saving faith, or the lack of it.

Now in a sense, the change from verses 12 to 13 is a quick change for James. He had been talking about trials. He had been using the same verb, peirazo, the same noun, peirasmos meaning trials or tribulations, he had been using that very word to talk about trials that the Lord allows to come into our life to make us strong. And he has just said that the person who endures those trials is blessed. Those trials, we learned, are outward circumstances which test our faith and produce spiritual growth. But those trials can also become temptations. And rather than being a means to spiritual growth can become a source of solicitation to evil. Every difficult thing that comes into my life, either strengthens me because I obey God and stay confident in His care and trusting His power, and so I grow. Or I am tempted to doubt God, deny His Word, disobey, do what is expedient and thus I have fallen to the solicitation to do evil.

The same word that means an enticement to evil is also used to speak of a trial. The difference is how you respond to it. If you respond to a trial with obedience, then you find it a means of spiritual growth. If you respond to a trial with disobedience it has turned into a temptation and you have fallen prey to it. Every trial has the potential to become a temptation, depending on our response.

So, James makes this shift from trials, which lead to growth and blessing, to temptations which lead to sin and death. Every circumstance of life that we face then provides us with a decision. In fact, it requires a decision. Will I persevere? Will I move ahead in faith in God by obedience to His Word? Or will I listen to the voice that suggests the easy way out is disobedience and fall into sin?

Now if I fall into sin, whose fault is it? Is it God's fault who brings the trials or allows them? Is it the fault of my circumstances? Is it the fault of my being created by God the way I am and I can't help it? Whose fault is it? If God brings the trials, then is He responsible when they become temptations? This issue of who is to blame in temptation for sin is the heart of this passage. And it is an essential thing because it really is something as old as sin.

Turn in your Bible to Genesis chapter 3...Genesis chapter 3. As we approach verse 11, Adam and Eve have already fallen into sin. And they are confronted by God. And God speaks to Adam in verse 9, says, "Where are you? He said, I heard Your voice in the garden, I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself." He never did that before but he had participated in sin and he was afraid of facing an infinitely holy deity and so he was hiding. And God said to him in verse 11, "Who told you that you were naked?" All of a sudden you had a self‑consciousness that you never had before. "Have you eaten of the tree whereof I commanded you that you should not eat?"

Listen to the man, all he had to say was what? Yes, I did that. But he said, "The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I did eat." Whose fault was it? Well, he suggests the woman, I mean, after all, he went to sleep one night and never had seen a woman in his life. Woke up the next morning and was married to one. Didn't even know what a woman was. But the real issue here is he's not blaming Eve. This is the statement, "The woman whom...what?...You gave me." Whose fault was it? God's fault. You could have picked any woman You want, why did You pick her? Why did You make a woman who would do that? By the way, Adam is not the only one who has spoken to God in those terms.

Notice verse 13, "And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, I did it." No, she said, "The serpent beguiled me and I did eat." I'm a victim just like my husband of something You created. I was in this wonderful garden and all of a sudden a snake showed up. I didn't make that snake. I didn't make that snake to talk. The blame is placed on God. And it's been so ever since. God made me, God made me with my sinfulness. God made me with my circumstances. God put me in the situation I'm in in marriage. God gave me my surroundings. God's created the scene. It's not my fault.

In Isaiah 63:17, you hear this strange statement, "O Lord, why hast Thou made us to err from Thy ways and hardened our heart from Thy fear?" What a terrible thing to blame God for your sin. But that is the tendency of fallen flesh, to shirk responsibility for our behavior and even go so far as to blame God. We're all tempted. We will all sin. And frequently we will blame God by blaming our circumstances, blaming our weakness, blaming our propensities, blaming our surroundings, blaming our friends, blaming our relatives, blaming our family, blaming our economic condition or whatever. And so verse 13, James says, "Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted by God." That is an exhortation that forbids anyone every blaming God.

Robert Burns, the famous Scottish poet, wrote, "Thou knowest Thou hast formed me with passions wild and strong, and listening to their witching voice has often led me wrong," end quote. And Robert Burns has articulated what people have believed throughout the centuries, that God made us with wild and strong passions, therefore what else could He expect but susceptibility to temptation.

Even the Jews among the rabbis of ancient times believed this. They called man's evil impulse yetzhar hara(??) and they said the yetzhar hara is man's evil impulse as opposed to good impulse. And the Jews' reasons, some of them, that because God had created everything and because He created man, He must also have created yetzhar hara. If He made everything, He must have made that. So we get rabbinic sayings like this, "God said, It repents me that I created the evil tendency in man for had I not done so, he would not have rebelled against Me. I created the evil tendency, I created the laws and means of healing. If you occupy yourself with the law, you will not fall into the power of it. God placed the good tendency on the man's right hand and the evil on his left," so said the rabbis.

It is a strange but it is an ancient belief that God is responsible for our temptation and our sin. James absolutely forbids such a thought. In fact, he implies that someone who really knows God has a meekness and a brokenness about his own culpability for sin and wouldn't think of blaming God as a continual act...although occasionally we may make such allusions.

Now notice again in verse 13 that you have a present passive participle, "let no man say when he is being tempted." While in the process of fighting the battle, while in the process of being tempted, let no one excuse himself, take himself off the hook by saying God is doing this." When you are in the path of continued temptation and you're nearing the brink of yielding, don't you make the excuse that I am tempted of God. Let no man say that. You could almost put quotes around the phase "I am tempted of God," as he is using it as if it were a quote from a person in that very situation.

Now I want to show you something very interesting in the choice of prepositions in this verse. The little word "of" in English has only one spelling and one meaning, of. But in Greek there are two words that can be translated "of." One is apo and the other is upo(?). They are very important words, a‑p‑o and u‑ p‑o. Apo means remote, remoteness, distance, an indirect relationship. Upo means direct agency, the one who actually is doing it. Here the choice is apo, remote. And what he is saying is, let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God, not that God is there directly tempting me, but that remotely He is the real cause of this problem...that at a distance, God is the one who created me this way, who created my circumstance, put me in this environment, caused all these things to happen, He is really responsible. It is not usual for someone to say, "God is actually soliciting me to do evil." But it is common for people to say, "It is God who created me in the situation and therefore He is ultimately responsible for what I do." Most men don't go as far as to see God as the direct tempter but they do feel God is indirectly to blame, apo by permitting the situation and the possibility of failure.

So, this would say, "Don't you ever say that God is not only not the near agency of temptation, but He's not even the remote agency of temptation. Don't ever say that." Don't ever look at yourself as a poor victim of God's providence, or God's creation, or God's allowance of something to take place.

Now, this isn't blaming Satan. This isn't blaming demons or the world or men, but God, that James forbids. Proverbs 19:3 says, "The foolishness of man perverts his way and his heart frets against the Lord." Philo said, "When the mind has sinned and removed itself far from virtue, it lays the blame on divine causes." He's right. Escaping responsibility for sin is a favorite human pastime. And anytime you put the blame anywhere else, it may be ultimately that you're making God responsible who created everything.

Some people have even gone so far as to say, "God is to blame in temptation and if you don't think so, then remember Matthew 6:13 where the disciples' prayer says, `Lead us not into temptation.'" I read one writer this week who said we have to plead with God to lead us not into temptation because if we don't ask Him not to do it, He will do it. James has no place for such foolish fatalism. Like the poor man who blames his poverty when he becomes a thief and steals and thinks himself justified in stealing because he was poor and he blames his circumstances. Like the drunk who goes out and wrecks his car and kills somebody in the process and blames his wife for an unhappy union, an unhappy marriage, or blames his business for driving him to drink, or blames pressure and feels excused from any real guilt. So it is that men blame God for making their inner passions. Men blame God for creating their circumstances. Again, Robert Burns, the Scottish poet, said, that he was...and I quote..."By passions driven but yet the light that led astray was really light from heaven." Again, articulating what men have felt for years and that is that they are really not responsible for the way they are, that's just the way they're made. James says this is intolerable. God is not responsible for temptation. You cannot say that. And if He is not responsible for temptation, He cannot be responsible either for...what?...for sin that results from it.