A Treatise of Temptation John Owen 1658 Chapter 2 What it is to enter into temptation, not barely being tempted, not to be conquered by it, to fall into it. The force of that expression. Having showed what temptation is, I come secondly to manifest what it is to enter into temptation. This is not merely to be tempted. It is impossible that we should be so freed from temptation. It's not to be tempted at all. While Satan continues in his power and malice, while the world in lust or in being, we shall be tempted. Christ as one was made like to us. that he might be tempted, and we are tempted that we may be made like to Christ. Temptation in general is comprehensive of our whole warfare, as our Savior calls the time of His ministry the time of His temptations. Luke 22, verse 28. We have no promise that we shall not be tempted at all. Nor are we to pray for an absolute freedom from temptations, because we have no such promise of being heard in it. The direction we have for our prayers is, lead us not into temptation. Matthew 6 verse 13 It is entering into temptation that we are to pray against. We may be tempted, yet not enter into temptation. So that, number two, something more is intended by this expression than the ordinary work of Satan and our own lusts, which will be sure to tempt us every day. There is something signal in this entering into temptation that is not the saints every day's work. It is something but befalls them peculiarly in reference to seduction to sin on one account or other. by the way of allurement or affrightment. Number three, it is not to be conquered by a temptation, to fall down under it, to commit the sin or evil that we are tempted to, or to omit the duties that are opposed. A man may enter into temptation and yet not fall under temptation. God can make a way for a man to escape when he is in. He can break the snare, tread down Satan, and make the soul more than a conqueror, though it have entered into temptation Christ entered into it, but was not in the least foiled by it. But number four, it is, as the apostle expresses it, 1 Timothy 6 verse 9, to fall into temptation. As a man falls into a pit or deep place where are gems or snares in which he is entangled, the man is not presently killed and destroyed, but he is entangled and detained. He knows not how to get free or be at liberty. So it is expressed again to the same purpose in 1 Corinthians 10.13. No temptation is taken you, that is, to be taken by a temptation, and to be tangled with it, held in its cords. not finding a present, a way to escape. So Peter says, 2 Peter 2.9, the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations. They are entangled with them. God knows how to deliver them out of them. When we allow a temptation to enter into us, then we enter into any temptation. While it knocks at the door, we are at liberty. But when any temptation comes in and parties with the heart, reasons with the mind, entices and allures the affections, be it a long or a short time, does it insensibly and imperceptibly, or the soul takes notice of it, we enter into temptation. So then, to our entering into temptation is required, first, that by some advantage, or on some occasion Satan be more earnest and ordinary in his solicitations to sin, by affrightments or allurements, by persecutions or seductions, by himself or others, or that some lust or corruption, by his instigation and advantages of outward objects, Provoking is in prosperity or terrifying as in trouble to multiply more than ordinary within us There is a special acting of the author and principles of temptation required in this Number two that the heart be so far entangled with it is to be put to dispute and argue in its own defense and yet not be wholly able to eject or cast out the poison of 11 that has been injected and but is surprised, if it be never so little off its watch, into an entanglement not easy to be avoided, so that the soul may cry and pray and cry again and yet not be delivered, as Paul besought the Lord thrice for the departure of his temptation, and didn't prevail. The entanglement continues, and this usually falls out in one or two seasons first. When Satan, by the permission of God for ends best known to himself, has got some peculiar advantage against a soul, as in the case of Peter, he sought to winnow him and prevailed. When a man's lusts and corruptions meet with peculiarly provoking objects and occasions through the condition of life that a man is in, with the circumstances of it, as it is with David of both, which afterward In this state of things a man has entered into temptation, and this is called the hour of temptation, Revelation 3 verse 10, the season in which it grows to a head, the discovery in which it will give further light into the present inquiry about what it is to enter into temptation. For when the hour of temptation has come upon us, we are entered into it. Every great and pressing temptation has its hour, a season in which it grows to a head, in which it is most vigorous, active, operative, and prevalent. It may be long and rising. It may be long-urging, more or less, but it has a season in which, from the conjunction of other occurrences, such as those mentioned outward or inward, it has a dangerous hour, and then, for the most part, men enter into it. So that very temptation, which at one time has little or no power on a man, he can despise it, scorn the motions of it, easily resist it, but at another time bears him away quite before it. It has, from other circumstances and occurrences, got new strength and efficacy. Or the man is innervated and weakened. The hour has come. He has entered into it, and it prevails. David probably had temptations before in his younger days to adultery or murder, as he had in the case of Nabal. But the hour of temptation was not come. It had not got its advantages about it, and so he escaped until afterward. Let men look for it that are exposed to temptations, as who is not? They will have a season in which their solicitations will be more urgent, their reasonings more plausible. Pretenses more glorious. Hopes of recovery more appearing. Opportunities more broad and open. The doors of evil made more beautiful than ever they have been. Blessed is he who is prepared for such a season without which there is no escaping. This, as I said, is the first thing required to entering into temptation. If we stay here, we are safe. Before I descend to other particulars, having now entered on this, I shall show in general first how, or by what means, commonly any temptation attains its hour. Secondly, how we may know when any temptation has come to its high noon and is in its hour. First, it does so several ways. Number one, by long solicitations, causing the mind frequently to converse with the evil solicited unto. It begets extenuating thoughts of it. If it make this process, it is coming towards its hour. And maybe when first it began to press upon the soul, the soul was amazed with the ugly appearance, if what it aimed at, and cried, am I a dog? If this indigation be not daily heightened. But the soul, by conversing with the evil, begins to grow, as it were, familiar with it. Not to be startled as formerly, but rather inclines to cry. Is it not a little one? Then the temptation is coming towards its high noon. Lust is then enticed and entangled and is ready to conceive, James 1 verse 15, of which more at large afterward, in our inquiry how we may know whether we are entered into temptation or not. Our present inquest is after the hour and power of temptation itself. Secondly, when it is prevailed on others and the soul is not filled with dislike and abhorrency of them and their ways, nor with pity and prayer for their deliverance. This proves an advantage to it and raises it towards its height. With that temptation it sets upon anyone which at the same time has possessed and prevailed with many. It has so great and so many advantages thereby that it is surely growing towards its hour. Its prevailing with others is a means to give it its hour against us. The falling off of Hymenaeus and Philetus is said to overthrow the faith of some, 2 Timothy 2 verses 17 and 18. Thirdly, by complicating itself with many considerations that perhaps are not absolutely evil, so did the temptation of the Galatians to fall from the purity of the gospel, freedom from persecution, union, and consent with the Jews. Things in themselves good were pleaded in it, gave life to the temptation itself. But I shall not now insist on the several advantages that any temptation has to heighten and greaten itself, to make itself prevalent and effectual with the contribution that it receives to this purpose, from various circumstances, opportunities, specious pleas and pretenses. necessities for the doing that which cannot be done without answering the temptation and the like, because I must speak to some of them afterward. Secondly, for the second it may be known, by its restless urgency and arguing. When a temptation is in its hour, it is restless. It is a time of battle, and it gives the soul no rest. Satan sees his advantage, considers his conjunction of forces, and knows that he must now prevail or be hopeless forever. Here are opportunities. Here are advantages. Here are specious pleas and pretenses. Some ground is already got by former arguings. Here are extenuations of the evil, hopes of pardon by after endeavors, all in a readiness. If he can do nothing now, he must sit down lost in his undertakings. So when he had got all things in a readiness against Christ, he made it the hour of darkness. When a temptation discovers, presses within doors by imaginations and reasonings, without by solicitations, advantages, and opportunities, let the soul know that the hour of it is come. And the glory of God with his own welfare depends on his behavior in this trial, as we shall see in the particular cases following. Next, when it makes a conjunction of affrightments and allurements, these two comprise the whole forces of temptation. When both are brought together, temptation is in its hour. They were both, in David's case, as a murder of Uriah. There was a fear of his revenge on his wife, and possibly on himself, and fear of the publication of his sin, at least. And there was the allurement of his present enjoyment of her whom he lusted after. Men sometimes are carried into sin by love to it, and are continued in it by fear of what will ensue upon it. But in any case where these two meet, something allures us, something makes us afraid, and the reasonings that run between them are ready to entangle us. Then is the hour of temptation. This, then, is to enter into temptation. This is the hour of it, of which more in the process of our discourse. There is means of prevention prescribed by our Savior. There too. Watch and pray. The first is a general expression by no means to be limited to its native signification of waking from sleep. To watch is as much as to be on our guard, to take heed, to consider all ways and means in which an enemy may approach us. So the apostle in 1 Corinthians 16, verse 13, this it is to watch in this business, to stand fast in the faith as good soldiers, to quit ourselves like men. It is as much as to take heed or look to ourselves as the same thing is by your Savior often expressed. For example Revelation 3 verse 2 a universal carefulness and diligence exercised in itself in and by all ways and means prescribed by God, over our hearts and ways, the beats and methods of Satan, the occasions and advantages of sin in the world that we be not entangled, is that which in this word is pressed on us. For the second direction of prayer, I need not speak to it. The duty and its concerns are known to all. I shall only add that these two comprise a whole endeavor of faith for the soul's preservation from temptation. End of chapter 2 of Temptation John Owen