TEMPTATION,
NATURE OF

WHAT the worm is designed to do is entice the fish so that the fish can become food for the fisherman. It is an enticement. No bear goes looking for a bear trap. No mouse goes looking for a mousetrap. What entices the mouse is cheese. But cheese is set on the trap, and because of its lust for cheese, the mouse is deceived in not recognizing the trap. Therefore, it is enticed or deceived or duped by something that is legitimate to create an opportunity for the destruction of the prey.

Most of us are in debt, because of deception. There was a desire to buy something that we either could not afford or should not have purchased, but that thing was presented in such a way so as to cause us to believe we couldn’t live without it. So, we spent money we didn’t have, for things we didn’t need, to impress people we don’t know. We were not thinking at the moment that this decision would take us the rest of our lives to pay off, at 18 percent interest.951

[Debt, Burden of; Deception, Satan’s; Materialism, Deception of]

Deut. 4:19; James 1:13–16; 4:1–3