Element 3: Remove Temptation

What point was Jesus making in the following passage?

If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell. Matthew 18:8-9 (NIV)

It seems that Jesus was using exaggeration to show that, since sin leads to Hell, we should remove it from our lives at all costs. But if we really did have to choose between losing a hand or going to Hell, we really should lose the hand! Sin is a serious problem.

What to do

If we think about how to apply the above passage to our lives, we can see wisdom in removing things which cause sin. We aren't talking about removing body parts, but removing temptation. It's true that temptation isn't the root of lust - our sin nature is. But preventing temptation can be very effective in helping to prevent falling. If lust is your battle, eliminate from your life whatever is involved with your temptation and falling.

• If it's TV or movies, stop watching them altogether.
• If it's the internet, stop using it.
• If it's catalogues, newspapers, magazines, or whatever, then avoid going into places with them, cancel your subscriptions, throw them out without opening them.
• A billboard? Drive another route.
• Buying porn? Only allow yourself to spend money on certain things, not on porn.
• Destroy any sources of temptation which you currently own.
• Make a rule that you aren't allowed to indulge in impure thinking.
• Avoid dangerous stores and areas.

These are just some of many possible ways to remove temptation. Eradicating temptation seems to be an important key to making headway against lust. Take heart! It's amazing how helpful this idea is; things may become easier quite quickly. Extreme vigilance can be a powerful help.

Yes, it can be really inconvenient, embarassing, and unenjoyable to remove temptation from your life. But it's worth it if it helps prevent this type of deadly unholiness. Read that Matthew passage above again, and consider how strongly Jesus puts it. Your salvation is literally at stake if you are not cutting sin out. Job knew this, and acted to prevent evil. Follow his example.

"I made a covenant with my eyes
not to look lustfully at a girl.
For what is man’s lot from God above,
his heritage from the Almighty on high?
Is it not ruin for the wicked,
disaster for those who do wrong? Job 31:1-3 (NIV)

Don't leave any doors open. Don't give yourself any justifications or routes for danger to enter in. If you find clothing catalogues to be a problem, then don't look at them – even if there is a sale and you need some new clothes. Don't justify internet research about questionable movies by pretending it 'doesn't count' as viewing actual porn. Temptation sometimes just needs a tiny door to get in, and then it seems to be able to unlock a bigger door, and soon real trouble arrives. The devil is a very dangerous enemy.

Furthermore, avoiding evil is obedient to God. He doesn't want us to be friends with the world.

You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. James 4:4 (ESV)

It may be impractical to totally remove each thing which is associated with danger. You still need to go food shopping, and you might have to use the internet for work. But it is possible to change things so that you still remove the tempting elements. For example, for the internet, you can make a rule that you are only allowed to view specific types of emails or visit a specific list of safe websites. You might activate filtering with your ISP to help protect you, or sign up with a service which will email somebody with your weekly internet use logs.

You can change your shopping habits so that you avoid some shops and are extremely careful in necessary stores. Maybe there is a nature documentary which you believe is safe, which you want to watch. Be very careful with this kind of thinking! Apart from the issue of TV and other things being worldly, lust has the uncanny ability to sneak in through almost anything. Be as general and specific as needed with your self-imposed limitations, so that you are as safe as possible.

A tactic that can help in potentially dangerous situations is to only do that activity under close supervision. This can help a person to be more vigilant and zealous to avoid evil. Controlling temptation is so helpful and important in the fight against sin.

I will set before my eyes
no vile thing.
The deeds of faithless men I hate;
they will not cling to me. Psalm 101:3 (NIV)

Another aspect which could be important is to not be inappropriately intimate with someone before marriage. It's quite possible to get a buzz out of kissing or even simply holding hands. Perhaps even this relatively low level of contact between unmarried people isn't proper.

Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity. 1 Timothy 5:1b-2 (NIV)

Modesty, keeping oneself for a future spouse, and safety from temptation are all excellent qualities to seek. People can make the decision not to hold hands or kiss before marriage, if they feel it is the right or wise thing to do.

The future

Will you ever be able to relax about temptation in the future? Jesus will certainly change you if you rely on Him, so yes. However, at the same time, we know that even the most changed person still has a sin nature (http://www.dansfriends.com/osas5.shtml#head5) like Paul did. Having a sin nature doesn't mean you have to indulge in lust. According to the Bible we can be free of that. What it does mean is that if we don't keep ourselves safe through the help of the Holy Spirit, we most likely will indulge. The Bible is full of strong warnings to believers about falling, saying that it will lead to spiritual death. Once you're free, Satan would love to have you back.

Temptation has the ability to latch onto the smallest foothold and grow, so being casual about it will probably never be wise. Try not to be too self-confident. Instead, be confident in Jesus and do what He says. Avoiding danger isn't the point of being a Christian, but it's a Biblically taught concept to help us achieve the point of being a Christian.

Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. 1 Peter 2:11 (NIV)

We can't be saved through work, but our saving faith must be characterised by working for God. Avoiding temptation is one way to help fight lust, and so obey Him. Cutting danger away is extremely helpful, but it doesn't mean there won't ever be temptation. It's almost inevitable that it will come around. When it does, we have to do what Jesus did, and resist it.

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