Strategy of Temptation: Incriminate God’s Character

Steve Jobs left a legacy of innovation at Apple. From the iPod and the iPhone to the iPad, he launched products that have changed the way we live. Even now, Apple’s products continue to get faster and smaller, lighter and smarter. Customers line up around the block to buy the latest versions.

Temptation acts on this premise of “better than.” We are often enticed by the promise that something new will be more deeply satisfying than what we currently have. We even grow suspicious that God has chosen to withhold good from us. When Satan tempted Eve in the Garden, he put God’s character on trial, convincing Eve that God had begrudged them the tree’s power and pleasures.

The writer of Psalm 73 exposes how he almost fell prey to this temptation of doubting God’s goodness. The psalm begins and ends with the truth of God’s goodness, but in the middle of the psalm, tension surfaces as the psalmist has struggled to believe this divine reality.

The psalmist writes of the gnawing bitterness that began to devour his confidence in God’s goodness. He saw the wicked prospering. Their financial net worth grew, they stayed physically healthy and strong, and they seemed to live without cares and consideration for God and His commands. To what end had he obeyed God? Was he any better off than his pagan counterparts? Hadn’t his faith caused him only greater pain and trouble? To answer those questions, he needed to cling to the truth that although life wasn’t always good, God was. In measure with His perfect justice, He would eventually punish the wicked and reward the righteous. There is often no greater protection in temptation than to believe that God is good.