Since you like satan.
Temptation by its very nature is deception, a lie. What is evil is deceitfully presented as good, what is harmful as helpful, what is poison as antidote, what is enslaving as liberating, what is foul as fun. Temptation is what a trap is to an animal. It offers something good, but its true intent is to trap and kill. This is the background for Christ's statement about the devil in John 8:44 "When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies."
To be tempted is one thing, to sin is another. Jesus was tempted but did not sin. We cannot avoid temptation. Countless individual and corporate monastic attempts notwithstanding, there is no place to go to escape from temptation, for the devil and our flesh are always with us. We can't escape it, but when it comes, we are to resist it, that is, say "no" to it. We are to "resist him Satan and remain, firm in our faith" 1 Peter 5:10 and "Resist the devil and he will flee from you." James 4:8.
Vigilance against temptation is not merely a solo affair. It is a community affair, an affair of the Christian community, the Church. This is seen in Galatians 6:1-2: "Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ." This is also seen in the 6th & 7th Petitions of the Lord's prayer: "And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one" Matthew 6:13. We pray in the plural. We pray this for one another not just ourselves.
The devil also often attacks with temptation following some spiritual victory on our part. Here again Elijah's victory over the prophets of Baal is a good example. This was Elijah's great spiritual victory. But soon after that he succumbed to temptation and fell into fear, depression, and fatalism. So it is often with us. When we have just shared the Gospel with someone, spoken out for the truth of God's word, have just started a new habit of Scripture reading or prayer, then we are attacked so that we might quit. Especially when we try to let our lights shine, to "go public" with our faith, we can expect the adversary to violently attack.
The devil often tempts us during a time of idleness. It has often been noted that King David was tempted to commit adultery with Bathsheba during a time of idleness. 2 Samuel 11, "Then it happened in the spring, at the time when kings go out (to battle), that David sent Joab and his servants with him and all Israel, and they destroyed the sons of Ammon and besieged Rabbah. But David stayed at Jerusalem. Now when evening came David arose from his bed and walked around on the roof of the king's house, and from the roof he saw a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful in appearance." The words picture a scenario of idleness.
The devil is tenacious and persistent. It is one thing to say "no" to one temptation. It is quite another to continue to say "no" to a persistent temptation. As an example: For a time Samson withstood Delilah's temptations to tell her the secret of his great strength. But we are told that "It came about when she pressed him daily with her words and urged him, that his soul was annoyed to death. So he told her all that was in his heart" Judges 16:16-17. Note that what won the day for Delilah was persistence. This is a picture of how the devil also works.
The devil leads us to doubt, then deny God's goodness or wisdom. This was his approach with Eve as recorded in Genesis 3. He injected doubt in her relationship with God: "Did God really say . . ." Then he openly challenged God's goodness and integrity. "You will not surely die . . . For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." This is often his technique with us. Often through other people he injects doubt of God's Word into our minds. Having then weakened us, he openly challenges God's goodness or justice, leading us to rationalize and justify saying "yes" to the temptation.
You know his schemes against YOU! Or as Peter puts it "Be on the alert" 1 Peter 5:8. Know what temptations are used against YOU. It does no good to be vigilant toward temptation if we are totally ignorant of the ways that we are most easily tempted.
So we're in a battle. Because even though we really have renounced the devil and all his works and all his ways, we find ourselves doing them too many times. It's a battle... a battle that started in the Garden of Eden, a battle that continues to rage on not only in this world but especially right in our own hearts. When a person is baptized into Christ, when they are declared beloved children of the Father in heaven, a new heart is planted within. A new self is created. And that new heart and new self rejoice in Jesus works and ways and totally renounce the works and ways of Satan. But the new self exists right alongside the old self; the new heart beats right next to the old heart. A Christian is by definition a conflicted personality. And so the battle within is inevitable. It's the battle Paul was talking about when he said: "For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want!" Galatians 5:17 It's a battle he was talking about when he cried out: "I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want to do." Rom. 7:19
Jesus knew enough of Satan's works to know that he only wanted to destroy in Jesus the light of faith. He knew enough of Satan's ways to know that the devil is a liar whom you can never believe. In the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness, Jesus succeeds in doing what Adam and Eve failed to do. He turns His back on Satan's deceits and empty promises and He clings to God alone.
The sign of spiritual life within us is actually the raging battle within. To give up the fight against evil is simply to renounce everything Jesus would give us. In mercy, the Word of God is spoken to us to strengthen us. God's Word does not promise an end to the battle in this life. In fact, God's Word assures us that the Battle will go on until the day we die. But God's Word gives us the courage and strength to fight this life-long battle. It does so because in speaking truth to us, it unites us to Jesus: it tells us that we are children of God, holy and beloved. It points us for the proof of this, not to any successes we have in the battle against evil, but simply to the cross. There the Word teaches us to see the true tree of life: where Forgiveness wipes out sin, where Love defeats evil, where Life destroys death.
Do you renounce the devil and all his works and all his ways? I hope so. You said so, at baptism. You can't have it both ways. Yet the devil tries to make us have it both ways because in doing so he's really winning us to his way. The power to continue the battle is God's Word and sacraments. The more of God's power we take in, the harder the devil works on us. And the harder the devil works on us, the more strength God gives us. And when it comes to the direct battle between God and Satan, we need only look as far as the cross and empty tomb to know who the real winner is. Jesus is the winner. And He gives you the power to be the winner, as well.
When Paul describes the full armor of God we need to withstand the devil's attacks, the only offensive weapon he mentions is "the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God" Eph. 6:17. Whether Paul was thinking of Jesus when he wrote this, our Lord Jesus is the greatest example of using God's Word as a weapon to defeat Satan. In the Gospels Matthew 4:1-11 we learn that when the devil tempted Jesus in the wilderness, Jesus fought Him with the Word of God. Three times he was tempted and three times Jesus quoted Scripture to drive off the enemy. What catches my attention is that each passage Jesus quoted was a passage that confronted the specific temptation. In the same way, we should confront whatever is tempting us, with a passage that speaks to the sin we are being tempted to commit. For example, if we are being tempted to cheat, we should confront the devil and our sinful flesh with the 7th Commandment: "It is written, "You shall not steal."
Another way to use God's Word as a weapon is to be so immersed in the Word that you know right from wrong and therefore know when you are being tempted. Here I have in mind passages like Psalm 119:11 "Your word I have treasured in my heart, that I may not sin against You." If we don't have a clear understanding and memory of what God says is right and wrong in His Word, we will not know when we are being tempted.
Prayer is a second, and an extremely important, weapon, that God has given us to fight off temptation. Jesus made this clear already in the Lord's Prayer. The last two petitions are devoted to praying against the devil and temptation: "And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." We also remember Jesus' words to Peter, James, and John and the garden of Gethsemane: "Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak" Matthew 26:41. Of course this means praying both when we are being tempted, that God might help us say "no;" and it means praying daily that God might keep us from succumbing to temptation.
Using the Gospel as a weapon means confessing your baptism and faith in the Gospel as Paul outlines in Romans 6. It means affirming your new identity in Christ in the face of whatever is tempting you. It means saying, for example, "Devil, you who are tempting me, you have no power over me. I am a Christian. I have been baptized. Through baptism, I have died to sin but am alive to God through Christ Jesus. I belong to Jesus Christ, who, by His perfect life and death, has saved me, forgiven me, and set me free from slavery to you, sin, and death. Sin has no power over me for I am under grace. I believe that Jesus Christ lived and died for me. I now dwell in His kingdom, not yours. Therefore, be gone satan”!
The fourth weapon I believe God has given us is a matter of common sense - but it is also found in the Scriptures. We are to fight temptation by avoiding it and fleeing from it. By "avoiding" it, I mean not foolishly putting ourselves in a position or place where we will be easily tempted. For example, Psalm 101:3 “I will set before my eyes no vile thing." We will be tempted far less, if we avoid situations and places that tempt us. We will be tempted far more, if we willingly invite things that tempt us into our lives.
We are also to flee temptation. When we find ourselves in a situation where we are being tempted, we should flee, run away from it, rather than foolishly think we are strong enough to withstand it. In this spirit, Paul writes in 1 Cor. 6:18 "Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body." And Joseph is a great Old Testament example. When Potiphar's wife tempted him he fled out of the room Genesis 39:1-20.
