Five Reasons For Temptations and Four Snares of the Devil

God hates sin.

God is powerful and can conquer any sin in the human heart.

We are weak and frail and prone to failing when tempted. 

Nothing Satan does happens outside of God’s sovereign care.

All of these, I believe, are taught in the Scriptures. And when you put them together one can wonder why in the world does the Lord permit believers to be tempted? They are as Newton said, “in their very own nature, grievous and dreadful”, so how in the world does a good and loving God use them for His good end.

John Newton outlines for us five ways the Lord uses temptation for His good purposes:

1. To keep us from greater evil. God will often permit us to be be exposed and even fall by lesser snares to keep us from falling into a much larger pit.
2. To show His glory in supporting us under trials which we could not sustain on our own. If Christians just had a cake walk to glory then it wouldn’t show the awesomeness of the Lord’s ability to keep a spark going in such horrendous circumstances. (See here)
3. Our conformity to Christ means we’ll participate in His sufferings. These temptations are an element of human suffering. This is part of what Christ suffered in becoming man and He calls us to participate into His sufferings. Temptation is part of it.
4. Through temptation we are conformed into the image of Christ in our ability to empathize with others. Christ endured temptation and is able to have sympathy with His suffering brethren. So too our suffering humbles us and causes us to pity our fellow man in their trials and suffering.
5. It mortifies self-righteousness. If we weren’t at times confronted with sin that we in ourselves can’t conquer then we’ll be tempted to self-righteousness. When we realize our depravity we realize our utter inability to produce fruit on our own and our complete dependence upon the Vine.

But even though the Lord uses temptation to grow us we should not deny the fact that a ravenous lion uses temptations and trials with the aim of destroying us and debasing God. To this end we should be aware of these four snares of the devil when we are in the midst of strong trials and temptations:

1. Satan will labor to hide God’s designs. He’ll keep us from seeing God’s smiling face in the midst of a great tempest.
2. Satan will work to cause us to utter impatient speeches which only hurt our hopes. Newton notes that when Job started to complain his misery only got worse. We often begin a downslide into depression by giving ourselves permission to give full vent to our frustrations.
3. Satan puts evil thoughts in the believers heart and mind and then convinces him the thoughts are all his own. “It is not always easy, nor is it needful, exactly to draw the line between the temptations of Satan and our own corruptions”.
4. Satan attempt to drive us from the throne of grace. “By discontinuing prayer, we give the enemy the greatest encouragement possible; for when he sees for then he sees that his temptations have the effect which he intends them, to intercept us from our stronghold”.

Newton, I believe, wants his readers to understand that Satan’s chief aim when trials and temptations come is to get us to become confused about God’s character and to leave off our spiritual duties. It is only in the word, prayer, and being with other believers that we will be able to once again see God for who He is. And so if he can shut us off from these he can continue to convince us of his lies about God’s character.

So, by all means don’t quit praying or reading Scripture even if for some foolish reason you become convinced that the Lord doesn’t want to meet with you in this season. Because of Jesus the throne of grace is always open. The door is opened because of His completed work not because of your present obedience, nor will it shut because of your disobedience.

Photo source: here