From peirazo; a putting to proof (of good), experience (of evil), solicitation, discipline or provocation); by implication, adversity.
Original Word: πειρασμός, οῦ, ὁ.
Transliteration: peirasmos.
Phonetic Spelling: pi-ras-mos’
Peirazo: to try or prove
peirasmos: a trial, proof
w’al-t’bi’enu lidey nisayon ki ‘im-t’chal’tsenu min-hara`
(ki l’ak hamam’lakah w’hag’burah w’hatiph’ereth l’`ol’mey `olamim ‘Amen).
Matt 6:13 “And do not bring us into the hands of temptation,
but rescue us from what is evil.
{For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the majesty, forever and ever. Amen.}”
In Aramaic as well as Hebrew there are several words for temptation:
Nasah, nisa or nesa נסא
with the Hebrew letters: Nun Samek Aleph
and bacan.
All the above mean:
to test
however,
bacan means: to test for qualification
and
nasah means: to test one’s limits or abilities.
Nacah: to prove, try, tempt.
Another word for temptation is
Strong’s Hebrew: 4531.
מַסָּה (maccah) — temptation
Transliteration: maccah.
Phonetic Spelling: mas-saw’
Definition: despair. a trial, temptation;
Temptation is pronounced: tem-ta’-shun and in the Biblical sense is: a situation in which an individual experiences a challenge; and has to choose between fidelity/faithfulness and infidelity/unfaithfulness, in our obligations and obedience toward our Heavenly Father.
When the King James Version of the Bible was translated in 1611, the word temptation meant all of the above, however today the word has narrowed in meaning and modern translations use words such as testing, proving, trying.
What exactly is temptation?
What does the Word of God tell us?
Here are some scripture references.
Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Matt 26:41
4 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted[ a] by the devil. Matt 4:1-11
And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by the devil. Luke 4:1-13
When Jesus/Yeshua was tempted, tested and tried, He was led by the Fathers Holy Spirit and it was to prove Him worthy and able. Applying the meanings above it was, to test for qualification; to test one’s limits or abilities, and for Him to understand what it means to be under that type of pressure in a flesh body so that He can help us to overcome.
Heb. 2:18 Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.
Looking at nesa the Aramaic word for temptation it is the same in terms of language to the Hebrew word nasah, which does not mean temptation, it means to test; and in the English language, we have just one word test. In Hebrew, it’s used as:
a word of determination,
as a way to see if something or someone can qualify
or attain a certain standard for usefulness.
The word is also used to:
determine the limits of something or someone.
In Aramaic as well as the Hebrew language there are two words
nasahand bacan.
Both mean to test, but bacan is: to test for qualification and nasah is used to test one’s limits or abilities.
In this sense, the enemy was not tempting Messiah but he was testing Him.
He was giving Messiah the same chance that he gives to all of us. The opportunity to exercise our free will in choosing between the flesh or the spirit.
Jesus/Yeshuas temptations were indeed offered to Him as a short cut to His goal and He fasted for 40 days to keep His flesh life under the control of His Spirit; and He overcame them with the Word of God., with Scripture from the Bible.
His goal was to die as the perfect sacrifice for all sin and to reveal to the world Who He was, and to save humanity from eternal separation from our Heavenly Father.
The first opportunity was to try out, to test the physical desires.
He was tempted to turn stones into bread when he was hungry to satisfy flesh needs, but He did not.
Our Heavenly Father God is a life giving Spirit (John4:24); and does not have a human body, so before this event, He could not know exactly what it was like to go hungry and be faced with the test/temptation, choice of eating bread to fulfill His fleshly desires. Jesus/Yeshua chose to satisfy His hunger on the Words of God, and to feed His Spirit and not His fleshly body. He fully understands our struggle between feeding the body over the spirit.
Then the enemy launched a temptation against Yeshua/Jesus’ free will, this appeal was to Messiah’s soul, which wanted to be recognized and accepted. People could not believe that Yeshua/Jesus was the Son of God, the Messiah, yet the enemy had a plan and it would be easy to prove it to everyone. The devil challenged Him by tempting Him to throw Himself down from the pinnacle of the Temple right in front of the High Priest, the Pharisees and religious leaders of the people, which would prove to them He was Messiah. A miracle in front of them and all the other witnesses and when the angels came to His rescue there would be no doubt in anyone’s mind as to His Deity. But Yeshua/Jesus said You shall notnesa – testthe limits of God.
Finally, the enemy appealed to both the soul and the body of Messiah by offering to bypass the crucifixion, rejection, torture and all the other things he had to endure for our salvation. Messiah was tested by being tempted to yield to a shortcut, and to receive all the kingdoms of the world and every person in them and become king of all without having to die; but He would have had to give in to the adversary and bow in worship to him.
As with any compromise there is always a consequence to our choices, decisions and actions.
Messiah came to die, it was His purpose and goal and there was no quick fix, no alternate way to fulfill the will of His Father. All tests, trials, griefs and disciplines are outweighed by the blessings that follow in the wake of our victory.
He came to destroy the works of the devil which began in Gan Eden. He was the last Adam and like the temptations recorded in Genesis the same 3 areas were leveled at Messiah just as they were in the beginning; only this time, Messiah, the last Adam overcame them and was victorious.
The enemy was willing to let us all go if Messiah would just worship him.
The word worship in Aramaic here is seged which literally means:
to give recognition, honor, and attention to something or someone.
Lucifer was once the light bearer of God in the heavenlies and then he fell and this task of being a light in the darkness and carrying the light of the Gospel of His Kingdom, was passed on to us. All Messiah had to do was give in to the enemy and His body and soul could have avoided the cross. Is it possible that as the adversary ‘spoke’ to Him, His body and soul pressed Him to’ just do it.,’ or it would not have been a real temptation? However, the Spirit of God in Messiah knew that man would still be doomed and again the Spirit overcame the desires of the body.
The result is that Yeshua/Jesus knows what our battle between the flesh and spirit is like.He knows how hard it is for us sometimes to follow our spirit, because He himself had His body and soulnesa,tested to the limits.
It is the same for us, each day the desires of the body and soul are being tried to the limits. Each day the enemy offers our body and soul with opportunities, the lust of the flesh, that are opposed to our spirit which is joined with the spirit of our Heavenly Father God. Do we feed the desires of our souls with movies, internet sites, activities that are opposed to the holiness of God; or do we choose the desires of our spirit over the desires of the flesh?
What we choose to feed will grow stronger.
The spirit has no objection to eating, but it does to some things we eat that are harmful to us. It has no objection to an occasional movie but it does object to movies that arouse the desires of lust, fornication, violence, jealousy, hate and murder. Every day the enemy nesa’s us to choose the flesh over the spirit.
Because Yeshua/Jesus experienced our humanity, our suffering, and our temptation, tests and trials, He overcame them and is worthy to be our High Priest and the perfect sacrifice for our sins John 4:6-8
James 1:13-18. 13
When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone.
We are taught not to think of the temptation in which, lust meets opportunity, as that into which we are led by God.James 1:13-14.
Lusts or desires of the flesh, are the carnal, physical, bodily wants, which go above and beyond the basic needs to sustain life. Our Heavenly Father provides for and meets our needs, not our ungodly wants. Unbridled lust/desires could be summed up as the appetites of unclean and addictive spirits manifesting in and through peoples physical bodies, where the natural flesh life not submitted to the indwelling Holy spirit and controlled by the life of Messiah in us.
James 1:12-16. Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.
Luke 22:40. 40 On reaching the place, he said to them, “Pray that you will not fall into temptation.”
Matthew 6:13. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’
Matthew 26:41 Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation
Flee the evil desires of youth and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. 2 Tim. 2:22.
Prov. 28:13 Whoever conceals their sins does not prosper, but the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy.
1 Cor. 10:13 No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you can bear But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.
Paul comforts the saints with the fact that no temptation or affliction has befallen them, but what is common to human nature, and that God is faithful to provide a way of escape and God is faithful He had called them; 1 Corinthians 1:9, and since he knew “how to deliver the godly out of temptations”2 Peter 2:9, he would surely keep His side of the covenant, and, if they did their parts, He would establish and keep them from evil, 2 Thessalonians 3:3. He also promised that the way of deliverance will be ready, simultaneously with the temptation. A way to escape; rather, the way to escape. The way to escape is different in different temptations, but for each temptation God would provide the special means of escaping it, meaning we would not give in to it and therefore avoid sinning. However it is still our choice, to take the way out that is offered or not.
1 Cor. 10:15
An individuals innermost nature, what a person possesses in the inner spiritual part of his/her being, usually determines what they are tempted by externally.
As we are all different, he temptation fits the nature of the person being tempted and reveals the possibilities and weaknesses of that inner nature. In truth, each person actually determines or sets the level of his/her own temptation because temptation will come in agreement with the level of their controlling inner nature. What is a temptation to one person may not be a temptation to another.
Temptation comes as a thought, a suggestion, often as a quick option, a possible shortcut to reaching a personal goal; it does not usually point us towards what is obviously evil, but to what we initially believe and understand to be good.
This temptation is something that can confuse us at first and we aren’t sure whether it’s right or wrong, and we sway between telling ourselves ‘its ok’and ‘I shouldn’t give in’ finally convincing ourselves and by justifying and defending our actions. At this point we yield to it and make lust a god, an idol, and the temptation itself becomes the proof that our own fear was the only thing that stopped us from giving in and falling into sin earlier.
We struggle and suffer from temptation of the fleshly desires and lusts, simply because we have resisted and refused to allow our Heavenly Fathers Holy Spirit to lead us to a higher level, where we will face temptations of another kind.
Hebrews 2:18 Hebrews 4:15 – 16. Each man is tempted when he is going or led away by his own lust, it comes from within us, its’ sources are in us from mind sets, culture, learned behavior and developed habits, both internally as well as externally.
Uncontrollable lust is the expression of unclean spirits manifesting in human flesh through our souls, a combination of our minds thoughts, our will and our feelings or emotions, which pervert by excess, the natural inclinations in our physical bodies.
Until we are born from above, until the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit of the Living God causes our spirit to become alive from being dead in sin; the only kind of temptation we know or comprehend is mentioned inJames 1:14 where each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires lusts.
Through the regenerating power of His Spirit of Holiness into our spirit, we can overcome those fleshly lusts, be set free from any unclean spirits and as Messiah did in Luke 4:14 And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and a report about him went out through all the surrounding country. After He had the victory over His flesh, He began His public ministry full of the Holy Spirit. This is the pattern for us also, then we too will face temptations of another kind because we have been lifted and exposed to another realm. In the realm of the spirit we will face similar temptations to that which Messiah experienced during His life, however He has equipped us and is with us, to deal with whatever we face.
The things that Jesus/Yeshua went through have little to do with unbelievers, they are not of the natural realm; nor were they overcome by natural means.
Until we all become family, united together with Messiah, as children of the Most High; they mean nothing to us other than lifes’ challenges which are dealt with the same way as people in the world deal with them. Those that Messiah experienced were far more, because they were temptations of God as man.
The Son of God, Messiah, is formed in us through regeneration and in our physical life, Galatians 4:19, we have the same situation that He had while here, which is the life of the Son of God in us. It is no longer I that live but Messiah Who lives in and through me.
Satan doesn’t test and tempt us just to make us sin and do wrong things, but in order to make us, and cause us, to lose what our Heavenly Father has imparted to us through the regenerating, born from above by His Spirit experience.
He wants to destroy the possibility of us being of value to our Heavenly Father and His Kingdom.
He doesn’t come on the premise of tempting us to sin, but on the premise of shifting our point of view that its not really sin; and only our Heavenly Fathers Spirit can identify this as the enemies lies and deception.
Temptation is a test by a power outside of ourselves which is not natural to humans and It is focused on that which is held in the inner spiritual part of our being.
This is what happened to Jesus/Yeshua, when after His immersion in John 1:29 and by accepting His mission of being the One Who takes away the sin of the world, He was led by the Fathers Holy Spirit into the wilderness Matthew 4:1, and into the testing devices of the enemy, which we looked at earlier in the post.
He didn’t become weary or exhausted to the point of giving in to the pressure, He went through the temptation without sin and He retained all the elements of His spiritual nature intact.
So being tempted is not sin
Luke 22:28,
a fact which gives all of us much relief.
Temptation always begins with a thought and is followed by a decision, a choice; which is where we must stop and take every thought captive bringing it into obedience to Messiah.
Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. 2 Cor.10:5.
Jesus/Yeshua is with us through our temptations but are we going on with Him through His temptations? What does that mean? Many of us turn back from going on with Messiah from the very moment we have an experience of what He can do. When our Father changes our circumstances, pay attention and see whether we are choosing to go on with Messiah or will we align with the world, the flesh and the devil? We wear His identity, CHRISTians, but are we going forward with Him?
When tough and challenging times come, who or where do we run to first; and who do we go to for help? What alternate solutions and other sources of help do we seek for the answers to our problems? Are we looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith, or a quick fix from a worldly source? In John 6:66 even some of the disciples went back and walked with Him no more.
Jesus/Yeshua was tempted continually throughout His life here on earth and the temptations will continue throughout the life of the Son of God in us. Are we going on with Messiah in the life we are living right now or are we going back?
It’s all about endurance and not giving into the flesh life or to what we see in this natural realm of earth and the world around us. We have the idea that we ought to protect and shield ourselves from some of the things that our Heavenly Father is allowing and brings around us. Do we think we know better than Him? If we truly believe that He knows and is in control of everything and that it’s He who allows and determines our circumstances and whatever they may be; we must see that we face them while continually abiding with Him in and through His temptations.
We need to begin to see that they are His temptations, not as temptations to us, but rather temptations to the Life of the Son of God in us; Messiah/Christ in us, His life, His mind, His thinking, His power, His honor, is at stake in our physical lives, our bodies.
Are we remaining faithful to the Son of God in every thing that attacks His life in us? Are we applying His word to our life and situation? Are we acting in faith that His promises are true, and are we waiting on Him to fulfill His promises? Are we being still and know He is God, or are we spending time looking for a quick fix and an alternate solution so that we can make things happen in our timing?
Are we going on with Messiah or are we turning back to the worlds ways?
The prince of this world has many ways to offer us and there’s only one Way for the true, faithful disciple. It’s the narrow way, it’s uphill, there’s only room for 1 to walk beside us, one to be yadiyad/ hand in hand with Messiah. This Way goes through the valley of the shadow of death and through Gethsemane, then through the city gate and on outside the camp. Hebrews 13:13.
The Way is lonely and goes on until sometimes there is no longer only the voice of the shepherd calling us to Follow Me but just an echo. Matthew 4:19. Where is our faith? Is it placed in Him, His word or elsewhere? When the answer doesn’t come according to our timeline and our preferred way, do we wait and allow our patience to work with our faith and trust by the Spirit, or do we look for a solution solely with the arm of the flesh?
Does the end justify the means, the compromise; and if we yield to alternatives now, how will we stand in faith if the only option to alternatives means taking the mark and denying the Lord we say we love and serve? And how can we counsel others to stand in faith if we do not?
Be encouraged and remember:
Temptation is NOT sin for Messiah was tempted yet He did not sin.
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who was tempted in every way that we are, yet was without sin. Hebrews 4:15
However, we must be on guard that we do not succumb to the desires of the flesh. We must do our part.
How? Jesus/Yeshua told His disciples to
Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Matt 26:41 This answer is true for each one of us and we must watch and be on guard because that how the enemy sneaks in. The Greek word for temptation that has one meaning of experiment, we could say that as the enemy of our souls experiments on them, maybe our reaction by the power of our Heavenly Fathers Holy Spirit, will simply blow up his experiment in his face and our victory is complete in Messiah.
Hebrews 2:18 Because he himself suffered when he was tempted he is able to help those who are being tempted. And these tests and trials will not overtake us when we place our lives in His hands and trust Him to bring us through every time.
James 4:7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he must flee.
Use the same solution that Messiah did to counteract the ememy’s schemes; speak the Word od God, find relevant verses in the scriptures..and declare boldly it is written …..I am an overcomer seated in heavenly places with Messiah and His sacrificial blood has been applied to my life, I am redeemed, sanctified and set apart for His will plan and purposes, I am His child, who has been made righteousness and my life is hid with God in Christ.
Shalom aleikhem
chaverim and mishpachah!
Peace to friends and family.
Shavua Tov, Have a blessed week.
Make certain Messiah Jesus/Yeshua is your Redeemer, Savior, Lord and soon returning King and that you have a personal relationship with Him.
It’s all about Life and Relationship, NOT Religion.
You are very precious in His sight.
Not sure ..you can be…
SIMPLY SAY THE FOLLOWING MEANING IT FROM YOUR HEART..don’t delay one more minute,
SAY IT RIGHT NOW…
Heavenly Father I come to you in the Name of Jesus/Yeshua asking for forgiveness of my sins for which I am truly sorry. I repent of them all and turn away from my past.
I believe with my heart and confess with my mouth that Jesus/Yeshua is your Son and that He died on the cross at calvary to pay the price for my sin, so that I might be forgiven and have eternal life in the kingdom of Heaven. Father I believe that Jesus/Yeshua rose from the dead and I ask you to come into my life right now and be my personal Savior and Lord and I will worship you all the days of my life. Because your word is truth I say that I am now forgiven and born again and by faith I am washed clean with the blood of Jesus/Yeshua. Thank you that you have accepted me into your family in Jesus’/Yeshua’s name.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil:
