It is the great duty of all believers to use all diligence in the ways of Christ’s appointment, that they fall not into temptation. ~ John Owen
If we are led into temptation, evil will befall us, more or less. ~ John Owen
“ So deal with us that we may be powerfully delivered from that evil which attends our entering into temptation.” Our blessed Savior knows full well our state and condition; he knows the power of temptations, having had experience of it (Heb. 2: 18); he knows our vain confidence, and the reserves we have concerning our ability to deal with temptations, as he found it in Peter; but he knows our weakness and folly, and how soon we are cast to the ground, and therefore does he lay in this provision for instruction at the entrance of his ministry, to make us heedful, if possible, in that which is of so great concern to us. If, then, we will repose2 any confidence in the wisdom, love, and care of Jesus Christ toward us, we must grant the truth pleaded for. ~ John Owen
Christ promises this freedom and deliverance as a great reward of most acceptable obedience (Rev. 3: 10). ~ John Owen
Let us consider ourselves— what our weakness is; and what temptation is— its power and efficacy, with what it leads unto. For ourselves, we are weakness itself. We have no strength, no power to withstand. Confidence of any strength in us is one great part of our weakness; ~ John Owen
There are traitors in our hearts, ready to take part, to close and side with every temptation, and to give up all to them; yea, to solicit and bribe temptations to do the work, as traitors incite an enemy. Do not flatter yourselves that you should hold out; there are secret lusts that lie lurking in your hearts, which perhaps now stir not, which, as soon as any temptation befalls you, will rise, tumultuate, cry, disquiet, seduce, and never give over until they are either killed or satisfied. He that promises himself that the frame of his heart will be the same under a temptation as it is before will be woefully mistaken. ~ John Owen
Now, withstanding of temptation is heartwork; and when it comes like a flood, can such a rotten trifle as a wicked man’s heart stand before it? ~ John Owen
Consider the particular ways and means that such a heart has or can use to safeguard itself in the hour of temptation, and their insufficiency to that purpose will quickly appear. ~ John Owen
It is true, a little armor would serve to defend a man if he might choose there his enemy should strike him; but we are commanded to take the “whole armor of God” if we intend to resist and stand (Ephesians 6). This we speak of is but one piece; and when our eye is only to that, temptation may enter and prevail twenty other ways. ~ John Owen
Consider the power of temptation, partly from what was showed before, from the effects and fruits of it in the saints of old, partly from such other effects in general as we find ascribed to it; as— It will darken the mind, that a man shall not be able to make a right judgment of things, so as he did before he entered into it. ~ John Owen
By fixing the imagination and the thoughts upon the object whereunto it tends, so that the mind shall be diverted from the consideration of the things that would relieve and succor17 it in the state wherein it is. A man is tempted to apprehend that he is forsaken of God, that he is an object of his hatred, that he has no interest18 in Christ. By the craft of Satan the mind shall be so fixed to the consideration of this state and condition, with the distress of it, that he shall not be able to manage any of the reliefs suggested and tendered to him against it; but, following the fullness of his own thoughts, shall walk on in darkness and have no light. ~ John Owen
I say, a temptation will so possess and fill the mind with thoughtfulness of itself and the matter of it, that it will take off from that clear consideration of things which otherwise it might and would have. ~ John Owen
By woeful entangling of the affections; which, when they are engaged, what influence they have in blinding the mind and darkening the understanding is known. ~ John Owen
It has an efficacy in respect of God, who sends it to revenge the neglect and contempt of the gospel on the one hand, and treachery of false professors on the other. Hence it will certainly accomplish what it receives commission from him to do. ~ John Owen
© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible
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