The # 1 Way to Fight Temptation

I wrote a thread called How Jesus overcame temptation. But, within a few days, I was back to fighting temptation the way I like to fight it. I like to pray when I am tempted. Praying when you are tempted is a great idea. Keep doing that. But when you feel yourself being overwhelmed it might be a good idea to do exactly what Jesus did when he was tempted. Jesus fought temptation with the Word.

We struggle to quit because we either don’t completely believe the Bible or because we don’t know the Bible. Below is my top 40 list of Bible verses for quitting intoxication. I can guarantee you that I believe the Bible. So my problem is that I don’t know these Bible verses the way I should.

Just look at Proverbs. “Who has woe, sorrow, strife, complaining, and wounds? Those who tarry long over wine; those who go to try mixed wine.” Drunkenness leads to darkness, and darkness is code for no joy. A bit of short-term evil fun, but no joy. And when we don’t truly repent, how great is the darkness? This verse pretty much says that intoxication leads to constant trouble. And if we keep bouncing back and forth between sin and Jesus we can still sometimes feel that darkness a week or two later.

Second, we always talk about skills for quitting. Toughness is today’s tip. Life beats us up again and we need to increase toughness to overcome intoxication. Pray, “Father, take away my spirit of drinking/drugs and help me to be tough.”

I bring this up because we need to read the Bible, spend time in prayer and increase our skills and habits for quitting. But at the key moment of temptation, we fight back with the Bible exactly the way Jesus did. There is power in the Word. Print it out, try it, believe it.

Proverbs 20:1 ESV
Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler, and whoever is led astray by it is not wise.
Ephesians 5:18 ESV
And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit,
Proverbs 23:29-35 ESV
Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has strife? Who has complaining? Who has wounds without cause? Who has redness of eyes? Those who tarry long over wine; those who go to try mixed wine. Do not look at wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup and goes down smoothly. In the end it bites like a serpent and stings like an adder. Your eyes will see strange things, and your heart utter perverse things. …
1 Peter 5:8 ESV
Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
Proverbs 23:21 ESV
For the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty, and slumber will clothe them with rags.
Romans 14:21 ESV
It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble.
Galatians 5:19-21 ESV
Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Isaiah 5:22 ESV / 496 helpful votes 
Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine, and valiant men in mixing strong drink,
1 Timothy 3:8 ESV
Deacons likewise must be dignified, not double-tongued, not addicted to much wine, not greedy for dishonest gain.
Proverbs 23:20-21 ESV
Be not among drunkards or among gluttonous eaters of meat, for the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty, and slumber will clothe them with rags.
Romans 13:13 ESV
Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy.
Luke 21:34 ESV
“But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap.
1 Corinthians 6:12 ESV
“All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything.
Proverbs 21:17 ESV
Whoever loves pleasure will be a poor man; he who loves wine and oil will not be rich.
Hosea 4:11 ESV
Whoredom, wine, and new wine, which take away the understanding.
1 Peter 4:3 ESV
For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry.
1 Corinthians 6:9-11 ESV
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
Titus 2:3 ESV
Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good,
1 Corinthians 3:17 ESV
If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.
1 Peter 4:7 ESV
The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers.
Isaiah 5:11-12 ESV
Woe to those who rise early in the morning, that they may run after strong drink, who tarry late into the evening as wine inflames them! They have lyre and harp, tambourine and flute and wine at their feasts, but they do not regard the deeds of the Lord, or see the work of his hands.
1 Timothy 3:2-3 ESV
Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money.
1 Corinthians 6:19 ESV
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own,
Daniel 1:8 ESV
But Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself with the king’s food, or with the wine that he drank. Therefore he asked the chief of the eunuchs to allow him not to defile himself.
Ecclesiastes 10:17 ESV
Happy are you, O land, when your king is the son of the nobility, and your princes feast at the proper time, for strength, and not for drunkenness!
1 Peter 4:3-4 ESV
For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry. With respect to this they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you;
Romans 12:2 ESV
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Isaiah 24:9 ESV
No more do they drink wine with singing; strong drink is bitter to those who drink it.
Proverbs 23:32 ESV
In the end it bites like a serpent and stings like an adder.
Matthew 24:48-51 ESV
But if that wicked servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed,’ and begins to beat his fellow servants and eats and drinks with drunkards, the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know and will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Isaiah 5:22-23 ESV
Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine, and valiant men in mixing strong drink, who acquit the guilty for a bribe, and deprive the innocent of his right!
Habakkuk 2:5 ESV
“Moreover, wine is a traitor, an arrogant man who is never at rest. His greed is as wide as Sheol; like death he has never enough. He gathers for himself all nations and collects as his own all peoples.”
Proverbs 23:35 ESV
“They struck me,” you will say, “but I was not hurt; they beat me, but I did not feel it. When shall I awake?”