To Entice -Revelation 2:14

Revelation 2:14
Nevertheless, I have a few things against you: There are some among you who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to entice the Israelites to sin so that they ate food sacrificed to idols and committed sexual immorality.

It was not the food itself that was the problem, but how it was being used that was the problem. It is not the body or sex that is the problem, but the misuse and abuse of this gift from God. God told Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply, and it was good.

The serpent enticed Adam and Eve to disobey God in the Garden. Their sin was not in the temptation, but their decision to act on that impulse aroused by temptation. The bedrock of that impulse is the gravity of self which draws us down to the mire of the earth and away from the life above.

In the Matthew verse below we are told that "it is necessary that that temptations come". This is in harmony with the the existence of the forbidden tree in the Garden. Among the good and pleasant things of the earth, God provided choice. It may seem out of place at first to find the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden. Why was it there?

Remember that God created everything and it was good. The good of this tree was that it enabled our choosing of God, which enabled our loving response to our loving Father. It became bad when only when man did not choose God and ate of the fruit of this forbidden tree. Love is demonstrated by our obedience to His word.

Jesus faced temptation in the wilderness, but He did not eat of its fruit. He did what Adam was not able to do, and because of that, we ourselves now have the choice to eat from the tree of life. We walk in the wilderness of this world and forbidden fruit is all around us, but if we choose Jesus we are able to share in His victory over the world.


Matthew 18:7
Temptations to Sin
7 “Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes!

Numbers 25:1-2
1 While Israel lived in Shittim, the people began to whore with the daughters of Moab. 2 These invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods.

Numbers 31:16
Behold, these, on Balaam's advice, caused the people of Israel to act treacherously against the Lord in the incident of Peor, and so the plague came among the congregation of the Lord.

2 Peter 2:15-16
Forsaking the right way, they have gone astray. They have followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved gain from wrongdoing, 16 but was rebuked for his own transgression; a speechless donkey spoke with human voice and restrained the prophet's madness.

1 Corinthians 10:20-22
No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons. 21 You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. 22 Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?

1 Corinthians 6:13-15
“Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food”—and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 14 And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. 15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never!