Okay, I don’t really know how to put this so here goes: If God gave us free will, why is it Satan can still tempt us?<\/p>\n\t
A good question. Free will means that God allows you to make choices in your life. God decided before making the world that He wanted people who followed Him because they want to do so, not because they had to. But what if you were never given a choice?<\/p>\n
“You have your choice of Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches for lunch or Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches. Which would you like?” You would rightly claim that it wasn’t a choice at all.<\/p>\n
So when God put the man in the garden, He gave Adam a choice. “And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, ‘Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die’<\/em>” (Genesis 2:16-17). Notice that God even told Adam what would happen if he broke God’s law. Of course, you know the story of what happened in Genesis 3 when Satan tempted Eve. You could say that Satan took advantage of the fact that Eve had the right to choose to tempt her into making the wrong choice. If Eve didn’t have a choice, then Satan would not have been able to tempt her.<\/p>\n Satan still does this today to us. He uses our natural, built-in desires against us to encourage us to make wrong choices. “Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death. Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren<\/em>” (James 1:13-16). God doesn’t stop Satan from tempting us because doing so would eliminate our free choice.<\/p>\n But God does limit Satan. Satan can’t do just anything he pleases. God makes sure that you have a fair chance to choose what is right. “No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it<\/em>” (I Corinthians 10:13).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Question: Okay, I don’t really know how to put this so here goes: If God gave us free will, why is it Satan can still tempt us? Answer: A good question. Free will means that God allows you to make choices in your life. God decided before making the world that He wanted people who…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[426,185],"class_list":["post-19079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-free-will","tag-temptation"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8254,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/why-did-god-put-the-forbidden-tree-in-the-garden\/","url_meta":{"origin":19079,"position":0},"title":"Why did God put the forbidden tree in the garden?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 22, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I have a couple of doubts and am hoping to get an answer from you. Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the forbidden tree, which was a sin. Why did God has created that tree? If there is no tree, then there would have been no sin. Why\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13764,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/why-did-god-put-the-tree-in-the-garden-if-he-knew-man-would-sin\/","url_meta":{"origin":19079,"position":1},"title":"Why did God put the tree in the garden if He knew man would sin?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 1, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: \"Why Does God Allow Evil?\" was a great explanation about why sin exists in the world, I enjoyed reading it and it has been a helpful tool when people ask me about sin and why God allows it to happen. I would like to ask you a question about\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7771,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/were-adam-and-eve-bound-to-sin\/","url_meta":{"origin":19079,"position":2},"title":"Were Adam and Eve bound to sin?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 9, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: My thesis is that Adam was bound to fall. How long Adam or Eve could resist not eating the forbidden fruit? Because as long as Adam and Eve were in the garden that tree was always before them. As long as they resist eating the fruit they would remain\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":28336,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-would-have-happened-if-satan-wasnt-in-the-garden\/","url_meta":{"origin":19079,"position":3},"title":"What would have happened if Satan wasn’t in the Garden?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 6, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I was scanning around the web and found\u00a0your article on the Tree in the Garden. Some brothers get together for breakfast and fellowship one day a week before work.\u00a0 This week we had both an elder and minister, two deacons, and another brother.\u00a0 We occasionally discuss issues that I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":27151,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/how-do-you-know-that-musical-instruments-are-bad\/","url_meta":{"origin":19079,"position":4},"title":"How do you know that musical instruments are bad?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 7, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Music instruments. Psalms 33:2-3 \"Praise the LORD with harp: sing unto him with the psaltery and an instrument of ten strings. Sing unto him a new song; play skilfully with a loud noise.\" Lucifer was highly gifted with musical talent before he rebelled. Ezekiel 28:13 (Speaking of Lucifer) \"the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":20121,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/why-create-humans-if-god-knew-most-would-live-sinfully\/","url_meta":{"origin":19079,"position":5},"title":"Why create humans if God knew most would live sinfully?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 3, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: So, God controls everything that will ultimately happen, but not the choices we make in order to get to that final event, correct? I'm almost positive that that's what\u00a0all of those articles\u00a0were pointing to. So then, does that mean that He meant for humans to ultimately be sentenced to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19079\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}