Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”
“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

• Genesis 3:1-5

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”

• Matthew 4:1-3

Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.

• 1 Peter 5:8

When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

• James 1:13-15

“Sin cannot arise out of a person alone any more than one sex alone can have a baby; thus the Christian teaching about the devil’s temptation.”

• Søren Kierkegaard, Provocations (from Thoughts that Radically Cure)

I love reading Kierkegaard, but in this case, I may have to disagree, but when I was young, I silently disagreed with a speaker at our high school.

Okay, Kierkegaard’s point about one sex cannot have a child alone…  I agree with that regardless of the mad scientist experiments going on in the world today.

The speaker in my high school said that Satan does not have to tempt us all the time.  He, or one of his demons (the third of the angels that fell with him), tempt us until it feels good.  It is as if Satan created a “Satisfy Me” button inside our bodies.  He pushes the button for a while and then after that indoctrination period, Satan can go to someone else.

Then, we have a moment of boredom or exhaustion or even happiness, and we push the “Satisfy Me” button on our own.

This is not the way the speaker said it back 55+ years ago.  He said that we become evil enough to initiate bad behavior without being tempted.  Something within us triggers that response.  With every person, it is probably a different trigger.  Are we feeling down and we wish to feel better?  Or are we feeling great and we wish that feeling to continue?  Whatever the trigger is, and some have many triggers, we do not need Satan.

For anyone who has worked with people going to AA or the others of that type of thing, they will tell you that they are an addict for life, and staying away from that lifestyle is a day-by-day proposition.  That does not mean that Satan is resting on their shoulder, tempting them.

There are four Scriptures above.  Eve was tempted with Adam watching, and she fell prey to the temptation, and Adam followed.  Then Jesus was tempted, and He quoted Scripture to let Satan know that Jesus was not going to do what Satan said, and Satan finally took a hike.  Satan is a lion prowling, looking for whom he can devour.  But then, James talks about not tempting…

And then James says that we sin from something inside us.

It is way too easy to falter and stumble and sin and then blame it on Satan.  It’s like having Satan as our get out of jail free card.  “He tempted me.”  But God knows that on some of those occasions, Satan was not even in town that day.

The next time we go to prayer and pray for forgiveness, think of what a wretched person we are to have disappointed God, the God who we love.  The God who sent His Son to die for us.

There is no victimless sin.  For if we have that type of bad habit, we are causing ourselves to be victimized.

Sin is real.  You may get angry, throw a punch, and miss the other person.  But you injure yourself, even if you were all alone and you threw the punch in your imagination.

Keeping our eyes on Jesus and reading His Word so that we have the ammunition to use against those tempters.  Those are important things.

But … oh!  Look at that shiny thing!  Isn’t it pretty?  Look at it sparkle. …

Yep.  I have been there too often and I am still a work under construction.  I may not have much patience, one of my many faults, but God has patience with me.

So, I go to Him again and again.

Lord, forgive me.  I should not have strayed.  I am weak.  Make me strong.  I should never be satisfied by little improvements.  I have too far to go, but I know that you love me.  Heal me.  Amen

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.