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Time-Tested Tactics for Fighting Temptation

Temptation Is an Opportunity

What is it about temptations that made Eliot consider them so crucial to Christian growth? He explains,

Temptations are humbling providences, they are rods of correction and Instruction, that wean us from all kind of self-confidence, or self seeking; they rectify and purge us in our grounds and ends, in all our motions: And when a Christian is duly sanctified in his grounds and ends, he is a fitted instrument to glorify God in any service whatsoever. The less of man, the more of God. (65)

Should we then pursue temptations? Eliot counsels against that, citing Peter’s following of Christ into the courtyard of the high priest’s house as an illustration: “It is dangerous to intrude ourselves into a place or way of Temptation, as Peter did; it may expose us to lie or deny Christ, and curse ourselves; as all these falls and knocks Peter felt” (78).

God’s Permit to Carry

Eliot reminds readers that “Jesus Christ hath suffered Temptations deeper than any ever did, and therefore experimentally knoweth how to relieve us” (65). Besides going to God in prayer and drawing near to Christ by way of taking Communion with the body, Eliot points readers to the word of God as another weapon with which to fight temptation to sin. He looks to the wilderness experience of the Word-made-flesh as our example and divine precedent for wielding the Sword of the Spirit against Satan’s assaults.

See the constant way by which the Lord Jesus doth answer, expel and conquer every kind of Temptation, [namely] by resisting it by the Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God. The Scripture is a weapon mighty through God, and if we be diligent it is always ready at hand, for our use and defense, when all our actions and conflicts are regulated by a command, the promise will ever be ready to assist, and protect us. See the powerful Effect of a pertinent application of a Scripture in our management of the Spiritual War, in repelling and resisting of Temptation, James 4:7. … The Sword of the Spirit is an holy weapon, that he dares not conflict with, if Satan assault thee, and find thee well armed and furnished with the Scripture, he will soon depart, and let his Temptation fall, only by at present, watching for a fitter season, for that or any other Temptation whereby he may do thee a mischief. (62)

In particular, note Eliot’s reference to both a command and a promise in the Scriptures. He says, “When all our actions and conflicts are regulated by a command, the promise will ever be ready to assist, and protect us.” He specifically mentions James 4:7: “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”

Eliot’s advised way of “repelling and resisting” the temptation to sin that comes from the devil is “a pertinent application of a Scripture.” His logic here is intriguing. Eliot is motivated by obedience to the commands of God by an expectation that God will fulfill the respective promises attendant to those commands. Here is a man living in the 17th century, and fighting the temptation to sin, we might say, by the purifying power of faith in future grace.

Much has changed, no doubt, in the three and a half centuries since, but the biblical tactics against temptation endure. The instruction and promises of God are timeless weapons in the battle with sin, as God works even through temptations to conform us to Christ and fit us for the humble service of others.