Home > Work > Tempted and Tried: Temptation and the Triumph of Christ
1 " We need more worship wars, not fewer. What if the war looked like this in your congregation--the young singles petitioning the church to play more of the old classics for the sake of the elderly people, and the elderly people calling on the leadership to contemporize for the sake of the young new believers? This would signal a counting of others more important than ourselves (Phil 2:3), which comes from the spirit of the humiliated, exalted King, Christ (Phil 2:5-11). "
― Russell D. Moore , Tempted and Tried: Temptation and the Triumph of Christ
2 " You will be tempted exactly as Jesus was, because Jesus was being tempted exactly as we are. You will be tempted with consumption, security, and status. You will be tempted to provide for yourself, to protect yourself, and to exalt yourself. And at the core of these three is a common impulse—to cast off the fatherhood of God. "
3 " Whatever the desire—for food, for attention, for admiration, for adventure, for fame, for security, for whatever it is that you crave at the moment—once it’s redirected away from its intended end, it becomes a master. "
4 " But sometime before dawn on a Sunday morning, a spike-torn hand twitched. A blood-crusted eyelid opened. The breath of God came blowing into that cave, and a new creation flashed into reality. God was not simply delivering Jesus—and with him all of us—from death, he was also vindicating him—and with him all of us. "
5 " The path of temptation is gradual and intelligent, not as sudden and random as it seems. "
6 " When our ultimate goal becomes security and protection, God becomes a means to that security and protection. We “test” him then, to see if he is able to serve as a means to our real god, our sense that everything will be all right. "
7 " . . .what's important is something other than I'm proven to be right. What's important is truth and hope and, and above all these, love. "
8 " Most people don’t “choose” fiery tempers or alcoholic binges or torturing prisoners of war or exploiting Third-World workers or dumping toxic chemicals into their community’s water supply. Most people don’t first conclude that adultery is right and then start fantasizing about their neighbor swinging from a stripper pole. Most people don’t first learn to praise gluttony and then start drizzling bacon grease over their second helping of chicken-fried steak. It happens in reverse. First, you do what you want to do, even though you “know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die,” and only then do you “give approval to those who practice them” (Rom. 1:32). You start to see yourself as either special or as hopeless, and thus the normal boundaries don’t seem to apply. It might be that you are involved in certain patterns right now and that you would, if asked, be able to tell me exactly why they are morally and ethically wrong. It’s not that you are deficient in the cognitive ability to diagnose the situation. It’s instead that you slowly grow to believe that your situation is exceptional (“I am a god”), and then you find all kinds of reasons why this technically isn’t theft or envy or hatred or fornication or abuse of power or whatever (“I am able to discern good and evil”). Or you believe you are powerless before what you want (“I am an animal”) and can therefore escape accountability (“I will not surely die”). You’ve forgotten who you are. You are a creature. You are also a king or a queen. You are not a beast, and you are not a god. That issue is where temptation begins. "
9 " Temptation only works if the possible futures open to you are concealed. Consequences, including those of Judgment Day, must be hidden from view or outright denied. "
10 " It’s true that gratitude and contentment and self-control don’t stop your stomach from grumbling. You want what you want. But the discipline of God teaches you, slowly, to put old appetites to death and to whet new ones. Through the Spirit of Christ you learn to crucify “the flesh with its passions and desires” (Gal. 5:24). "
11 " Where there is no gospel, something else will fill the void—therapy, consumerism, racial resentment, utopian politics, crazy conspiracy theories of the Left, crazy conspiracy theories of the Right; anything will do. Where there is something other than Christ preached, there is no freedom. "
12 " Now we don’t celebrate divorce, of course. But we see it as a personal tragedy, not as a scandal in our witness to the gospel. "
13 " much of our rhetoric is less about persuading unbelievers, or maintaining the faith of believers, than about, as Thomas Merton put it a generation ago, our search for “an argument strong enough to prove us ‘right.’”9 "
14 " Whatever you’re concerned about will lead you to what you’ll worship. And on what you worship hinges your destiny. "
15 " A crossless Christianity isn’t just a deficient Christianity; it’s the same old satanism of human striving. "
16 " Courage is walking forward and embracing others in love even though you may suffer greatly in ways you could never imagine now. Jesus walked that way before you, and he walks that way now with you. That’s the way of the cross. "
17 " Resistance to temptation means taking desire seriously. Both Jesus and Satan do. "
18 " Temptation—for the entire human race, for the people of Israel, and for each of us personally—starts with a question of identity, moves to a confusion of the desires, and ultimately heads to a contest of futures. In short, there’s a reason you want what you don’t want to want. Temptation is embryonic, personality specific, and purpose directed. "
19 " The sheer animal force of temptation ought to remind us of something: the universe is demon haunted. It also ought to remind us there’s only one among us who has ever wrestled the demons and prevailed. "
