Temptation

There are three sources of temptation – 1) the world by thought temptation, 2) the flesh or the old sin nature, and 3) the devil or Satan through religion by means of false doctrine. Rom. 12:2; Rom. 8.

“And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”  (Romans 12:2, NASB)

“For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” (Romans 8:5-8, NASB)

There is only one source of sin – your free will or volition. There are only two mutually exclusive ways of controlling the believer’s soul – 1) the filling of the Holy Spirit controlling or 2) the old sin nature controlling. Your volition is the switch between the two. 

There is nothing wrong with or sinful about being tempted. Everyone has different areas of temptation. The sequence of action is that you are first tempted, then you decide to sin via negative volition by giving in to the temptation which is against God. The very instant that you decided to sin, your soul came under the control of the old sin nature. If this thought or action is a sin, and it is, your decision instantly puts your soul under the control of the old sin nature, even if you were ignorant of the fact that it was actually a sin against God. To reverse the action and regain the filling of the Holy Spirit, you must confess your known sins to God the Father using 1 John 1:9. 

“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  (1 John 1:9, NASB)

You may not realize that you are out of fellowship. However, if you want to make absolutely sure you are in fellowship, just confess the sins that you can recall or remember to God the Father and you are promised by God that He is faithful and just to always forgive you of those sins you named, the sins that you forgot about, and also all sins that you never knew about yet committed in ignorance.

You know the doctrine of confession of sin biblically, so you flip your volition switch to positive. Now your soul is under the control of the Holy Spirit. You cannot sin while your soul is under the control of the Holy Spirit. You go negative at the point of temptation and come under the control of the old sin nature, at which point you sin.

The front door to old sin nature control is negative volition with knowledge. The back door to old sin nature control is negative volition without knowledge or ignorance of what is sin. Both involve willful sin! Why? You can’t sin without exercising negative volition.