Temptation and the Providence of God

Have you every wondered why God allows us to be tempted? According to the Scripture , God has good purposes for allowing His children to struggle with temptation and sin. Let's look at five purposes that God has in allowing us to face temptation.

1. God allows us to face temptation and sin so that He can demonstrate His fatherly love for us, His children.

And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?

“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
nor be weary when reproved by him.
For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and chastises every son whom he receives.”

It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. (Hebrews 12:5-7, ESV)

2. God allows us to see the lingering corruption and deceitfulness of sin in our hearts so that we will be humbled before Him.

For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. (Romans 7:22-25, ESV)

3. God allows temptation and sin to teach us to depend on Him and the provisions that He has made for us through Christ.

So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:7-10, ESV)

4. God allows temptation and sin to make us more watchful and aware of future occasions of sin. In other words, God helps us to grow in His grace (i.e. sanctification), so that we are better prepared to walk in holiness.

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. (James 1:2-4, ESV)

5. God uses temptation and sin to accomplish purposes that He has not revealed to us.

The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.(Deuteronomy 29:29, ESV)