Martin Luther Temptation Quotations

My temptations have been my Masters of Divinity.

God delights in our temptations and yet hates them. He delights in them when they drive us to prayer; he hates them when they drive us to despair.

For they who think they make an end of temptation by yeilding to it, only set themselves on fire the more.

Our office...subjects us to great burdens and labors, dangers and temptations, with little reward or gratitude from the world. But Christ himself will be our reward if we labor faithfully.

The devil and temptations also do give occasion unto us somewhat to learn and understand the Scriptures, by experience and practice. Without trials and temptations we should never understand anything thereof; no, not although we diligently read and heard the same.

The Devil has a great advantage against us inasmuch as he has a strong bastion and bulwark against us in our own flesh and blood.

You must learn that if you are a Christian, you will without a doubt experience all kinds of opposition and evil inclinations in the flesh. For when you have faith, there will be a hundred more evil thoughts and a hundred more temptations than before.

Where faith is not continually kept in motion and exercised, it weakens and decreases, so that it must indeed vanish; and yet we do not see nor feel this weakness ourselves, except in times of need and temptation, when unbelief rages too strongly; and yet for that very reason faith must have temptations in which it may battle and grow.