6 Arguments Satan Uses to Tempt You and 6 Responses to Use When He Does

Do You Only Hate the Consequences of Your Sin?

We often don’t change because we don’t really want to. You may react against this. “I’ve been struggling with sin for years,” you may say. “For years I’ve wanted to be free from it, and now you tell me that I don’t really want to?”

But the truth is we often want to change the consequences of sin but not the sin itself. We want to do something about the guilt, the fear, the damaged relationships. These outcomes can be a strong motive for seeking help, but in our heart of hearts, we still desire the sin itself. In moments of temptation, you still think that it offers more than God. I often see this in people’s lives. People ask me, as a pastor, to help them sort out the mess of their lives, but they don’t really want to change the behavior that’s creating the mess. People want help with debt, but they don’t want to change the idolatry of shopping that creates the damaging spending habits. They want help with broken relationships, but they don’t want to change the idolatry of self that creates the friction. Imagine that you could commit a sin without any consequences—no one would think worse of you, and no judgment would come from God. Would you do it? Answering yes, suggests John Owen, is not really very different from actually sinning. The implication is that we still love the sin more than God. The only thing stopping us is that we fear its consequences more than we love the sin itself. “But those who belong to Christ,” says Owen, “and whose obedience is shaped by gospel principles, have the death of Christ, the love of God, the detestable nature of sin, the preciousness of communion with God, a deep-seated horror of sin as sin, to oppose to all the seductions of sin.”¹

You Can Change

Tim Chester

You Can Change is a practical, interactive, and solidly biblical book designed to help Christians in all stages of life find victory over sin by focusing on what God has done and is doing in their lives.

The answer is always the same: faith and repentance. We need to dig deeper to expose the lies in our hearts and repent of the idols in our hearts. The New Testament language of repentance is often violent:

Amputating: “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell” (Matt. 5:29–30).
Murdering: “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry” (Col. 3:5).
Starving: “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires” (Rom. 13:14).
Fighting: “Take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm” (Eph. 6:13).

As Paul exhorts Timothy to be godly, he uses three pictures that all highlight the effort involved.

“Train yourself for godliness” (1 Tim. 4:7–8). Imagine athletes preparing for a race by following a strict diet. Each day they push themselves a little further. Often it hurts, but it’s worth it to win the prize.
“Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness” (6:11). Imagine a lion in pursuit of an antelope. It’s relentless as it follows the antelope, not giving up until it has it in its grasp.
“Fight the good fight of the faith” (6:12). Now we’re to imagine a boxer in the ring, taking heavy blows but always getting up again to fight to the end.

We need to be violent with sin. If we hold back, it’s almost certainly because we don’t want to be violent toward something that we still love. We need to hate sin as sin and desire God for his own sake.

We need to hate sin as sin and desire God for his own sake.

Spot the Voice of Temptation

Puritan John Flavel identified six arguments that Satan uses to tempt us, together with six model responses.² Spot the voice of temptation in your life and identify how you should respond. You might like to ask two people to read it aloud as a dialogue.

Argument 1: The Pleasure of Sin

Temptation: Look at my smiling face and listen to my charming voice. Here is pleasure to be enjoyed. Who can stay away from such delights?
Response: The pleasures of sin are real but so are the pangs of conscience and the flames of hell. The pleasures of sin are real but pleasing God is much sweeter.

Argument 2: The Secrecy of Sin

Temptation: This sin will never disgrace you in public because no one will ever find out.
Response: Can I find somewhere God is not present for me to sin?

Argument 3: The Profit of Sin

Temptation: If you just stretch your conscience a little, you’ll gain so much. This is your opportunity.
Response: What do I benefit if I gain the whole world but lose my own soul? I won’t risk my soul for all I could have in this world.

Argument 4: The Smallness of Sin

Temptation: It’s only a little thing, a small matter, a trifle. Who else would worry about such a trivial thing?
Response: Is the majesty of heaven a small matter too? If I commit this sin, I will offend and wrong our great God. Is there any little hell to torment little sinners? Great wrath awaits those the world thinks are little sinners. The littler the sin, the less reason there is to commit it! Why should I be unfaithful toward God for such a trifle?

Argument 5: The Grace of God

Temptation: God will pass over this as a weakness. He won’t make a big deal of it.
Response: Because God is good? Shall I take God’s glorious mercy and make it a reason to sin? Shall I wrong him because he’s good?

Argument 6: The Example of Others

Temptation: Better people than you have sinned in this way. And plenty of people have been restored after committing this sin.
Response: God didn’t record the examples of good people sinning for me to copy but to warn me. Am I willing to feel what they felt for sin? I dare not follow their example in case God plunges me into the depths of horror that he cast them.

Notes:

John Owen, “Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers,” in The Works of John Owen, ed. William H. Goold, 16 vols. (T&T Clark, 1862), 6:47 (modernized for spelling and grammar).
Adapted from John Flavel, “A Saint Indeed,” in The Works of John Flavel, 6 vols. (Banner of Truth, 1968), 5:477–80. Also published as John Flavel, Keeping the Heart (Christian Heritage, 1999), 116–21.

This article is adapted from You Can Change: God's Transforming Power for Our Sinful Behavior and Negative Emotions by Tim Chester.

Tim Chester (PhD, University of Wales) is director of theological studies and lecturer in spiritual formation at Crosslands. He has over 25 years of experience in pastoral ministry, as well as being the author or coauthor of over forty books, including A Meal with Jesus; Reforming Joy; and, with Michael Reeves, Why the Reformation Still Matters.

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