(8) Such captivity means not an idle, passive confinement in some spiritual prison, but an active enlistment in the armies of hell to fight against our Lord Jesus Christ.
Let us keep these considerations before us; let us ask the Holy Spirit to give us a right understanding of these truths; and our study of the Christian warfare will not be in vain.
IV. The Nature of Temptation
We have said above that Satan's chief weapon in his war against the soul is what is commonly called Temptation, whereby he allures the soul to consent to some thought, word, or deed that is contrary to the divine will.
Temptation is always a testing of the soul. This testing may be applied by God Himself, by Satan, or one of his fallen angels, or by one of our fellow-men.
God may be said to tempt man in the sense of applying tests to prove or instruct him, as when it is said that "God did tempt Abraham"[[17]] in commanding him to offer up Isaac. In every such case, however, God beforehand gives the soul He is testing sufficient grace to bear the trial. This is taught us by St. Paul in the text that we shall come back to over and over again: "God is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able."[[18]] Should failure and sin result, it would be because there had been wilful neglect to use the strength given. God cannot tempt man in the sense of inducing him to sin. Such a suggestion would be blasphemous. "Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God; for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man."[[19]] Trials may also come through man, acting consciously or unconsciously, under the direction of God, who might use such a one to try His servant. We do not mean to treat in these pages, however, this aspect of temptation. We are to deal with the word in its popular use, as meaning some inducement to commit sin.
Before going further, therefore, it will be well for us to define temptation in the sense in which we are using it.
Temptation is any solicitation, from whatever source, directed towards an intelligent, moral creature, who is in a state of probation, to violate the known will of God.
(1) All such temptation comes primarily from Satan as its source. He is originally responsible for every solicitation to sin, although he does not always act directly and immediately. He does perhaps most of his work through agents, men or devils. One very active agent of Satan is ourselves, though we often fail to realize it. By entering into occasions of sin we assist the tempter, and by repeated acts we so train our hearts to delight in some particular sin that no outside solicitation is necessary. We sin, and go on sinning, not because he is busy persuading us to it, but because, like rebellious Israel of old, we "love to have it so."[[20]]