Temptation Quotes

“Let the heart, then commune with itself and say, “I am poor and weak; Satan is subtle, cunning, powerful, watching constantly for advantages against my soul; the world earnest, pressing, and full of specious pleas, innumerable pretences, and ways of deceit; my own corruption violent and tumultuating, enticing, entangling, conceiving sin, and warring in me, against me; occasions and advantages of temptation innumerable in all things I have done or suffer, in all businesses and persons with whom I converse; the first beginnings of temptation insensible and plausible, so that, left unto myself, I shall not know I am ensnared, until my bonds be made strong, and sin hath got ground in my heart: therefore on God alone will I rely for preservation, and continually will I look up to him on that account.”
― John Owen, Of Temptation

“The duties that God ordinarily requires from us are not proportioned to the strength we have in ourselves but to the help and relief that is laid up for us in Christ.”
― John Owen, Temptation: Winning the Battle Before the War: In Modern English

“he that would be little in temptation, let him be much in prayer.”
― John Owen, Of Temptation

“Even the best of saints, being left to themselves, will quickly appear to be less than men—to be nothing! All our own strength is weakness, and all our wisdom folly.”
― John Owen, Temptation: Resisted and Repulsed

“When we are overtaken with a sin, we sometimes fail to analyze how we fell. This is to our great disadvantage. We repent of the sin, but we do not consider the temptation that was the cause of it.”
― John Owen, Temptation: Winning the Battle Before the War: In Modern English

“I am crucified to them; my heart is mortified to them. I have no desire after them or affection for them or delight in them; they are crucified to me. The crowns, glories, thrones, pleasures, and profits of the world, I see nothing desirable in them. The lusts, sensual pleasures, loves, respects, and honors of men, name, and reputation among them, they are all nothing to me. I do not value or esteem them.”
― John Owen, Temptation: Winning the Battle Before the War: In Modern English