The Invisible Force of Temptation

It has a couple of props, and I realize from where you are you can't see this, but it'll help you to imagine. I have five metal paper clips, and I have a little wafer magnet. And so you can imagine, as light as paper clips are, that as I get it close enough, they are drawn to the magnet. There's a force behind that. It's called magnetism. The name goes back to a city in ancient Greece where they found there were some lodestone.

There were some rocks in the area where they noticed that metal was drawn to it. Magnetism, a force, but it's invisible. With our eyes, we can't see it. Now, I have another type of magnet here. I have a compass. This compass has been around the world. You'd be surprised where this thing has gone. But see, man found that if you take a little metal strip and magnetize it, and balance it on a post in the center, that it will align north and south because, in reality, the earth is one gigantic magnet.

It has these magnetic flux lines, as you've heard. Or you could take a stick magnet in some little metal filings, and they will arrange. If you've ever done that, it's fascinating. They will arrange. But this compass says that away is north. I hope that's correct. Otherwise, my compass has been compromised somewhere along the line. But, you know, there are ways to work around some of these forces. We can't see the fact that something is here. It's invisible. It tells this magnetized little piece of this little bar in the middle to line up according with the north and the south poles, magnetic north and south of this globe.

We can't see it work, but it's here. It's real. It's genuine. Now, I can skew with this. I could take this wafer magnet and put it near that, and you can imagine what it does to that compass needle. From our house in the guest bathroom, we have a little plastic tub with toys for our grandson to play with when he's in the tub.

So I got a ball out of that. And if I drop this ball, you know what's going to happen. And that's another invisible force of gravity. Now, this one is actually like an eyeball. So I'm going to place that to look right here, is where I suspect we might need watching.

But we can't see it. But that's another force of gravity. And of course, they're related. But those are examples from this world around us that exert force, influence in our life. They work every second of every hour of every day. And whether we see them or not, they're real. They pull, they tug, they bend, they influence. And we learn to live in harmony with them. If we don't live in harmony with the law of gravity, we might live to regret that.

Now, I want to speak about another force with you today. As I said a while ago, there are ways to thwart these forces like another magnet near a compass needle. Or with gravity, man has found a way to build these simulators, these anti-gravity, to give, used to be, astronauts a bit of a taste of what it's like when they go up in a space shuttle, space capsule, or now the International Space Station. There are ways around it. But we're going to talk about a physical, or rather a spiritual force that pulls and seeks to bend and influence us every second of every day of our life.

Now, thankfully, with the help of God, there's a way to thwart that. There's a way to deal with that. Amazingly, three weeks from the Maronite, you're going to gather right here for the Passover service.

So we're getting down to the very wire. Well, let's go ahead and turn to James 1, where James will introduce this spiritual force that we're going to deal with today. James 1, we went through this in Bible study here in this hall not that long ago. James 1, and we will read verses 12 through 15. 12 through 15.

Verse 12, blessed is the man who endures temptation, and that is the spiritual force that we're going to talk about today. It seeks to pull, it seeks to bend, it seeks to influence, it seeks to turn our will toward its own and toward the source of that force of temptation.

For when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to those who love him. Verse 13, let no one say when he is tempted, and notice it says when he is tempted. It's going to happen. But let no one say, I am tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he himself tempt anyone. So this topic is going to take us to the source of that spiritual power, that invisible power that is seeking to influence us at all times. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. So again, notice the drawn away. It is like magnetism. It is like gravity. It seeks to influence. Then when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is full grown, brings forth death.

Looking at the end result. There is an almost incomprehensible power behind the force called temptation. Temptation is invisible, but it is real. It seeks to bend our will toward the source of that temptation. Now, as we look to the Passover, and we focus as we examine ourselves, we look at our own lives, take an assessment. We're going to find hopefully lots that's good and positive that should encourage us. But we'll also find that there are lots of things where we need to shore it up. We need to improve in. And God doesn't want self-examination, as Paul said, that we should do. He doesn't want that to be discouraging and depressing. So much so, we're so hard on ourselves where we think, well, I can't even go and take the Passover. That's not what God wants us to do. He wants us to be honest and forthright with ourselves. But we're going to come across the fact that there's still leaven in our life, physically and spiritually. There's leaven there.

And over the time, with God's help, He wants us to be working on getting the leaven out, the sin out.

And I find it helpful to go back and look at the roots of sin. Temptation is not sin yet. And that depends on what we do with it. It is a given. We will be tempted.

But then it depends on what we do with it. So, in three weeks and a night, we will gather to remember the Lord's death till He comes, as we're told. We will gather that night to memorialize the fact that He had to die for our sins. And because of that sacrifice, as He said here in verse 12, there's a crown of life. We look to eternal life that can be ours. But Passover and Unleavened Bread remind us or offer us the opportunity to focus more intently on the working of sin. Temptation, as we read, is not from God, but God allows it. He Himself tempts no one. Let's go to Ephesians chapter 2, probably an old memory verse that some of us may remember from a long, long time back. Ephesians 2, beginning in verse 2, down through verse 6.

We immediately think verse 2, the prince of the power of the air. And many of you will recall how Mr. Herbert Armstrong used to define the influence, the temptation of Satan, that, for instance, this room is full of all kinds of signals. If we have a tuner, we have a radio, we can play with the tuner and dial into a number of stations. And there are television broadcasts, all kinds of broadcasts that we can't see with our eyes, but they are just as real as the power of magnetism or gravity. Ephesians 2 verse 2, In which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience. So there is a spirit there.

There is a power there. It is real and genuine, and it works in the lives of those who are walking, especially the path of disobedience, among whom also we once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh. Now we see the word lust, and we find that's going to be a key factor. Having the wrong thought to influence us to go in a way that's contrary to God. That's going to happen. But the temptation is not sin yet. It depends on whether we cross that line out there that sometimes is hard to see, and it becomes lust, and that is sin. And that becomes, it leads to action, and that of course leads eventually to eternal death unless repented of and forgiven.

Fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and we're by nature children of wrath, just as the others. But God, who is rich in mercy, see, I think we need to remind ourselves, God is in the business of pouring out His mercy. God is a God of grace. God is not in the business of giving us what we may deserve. He is here seeking to get conviction, to lead us to choose the right way so that ultimately He can cover our sins and welcome us into the spiritual family.

Who is rich in mercy because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ by grace you have been saved, and raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. And we don't need to read further there. A temptation, simply put, is an inducement to sin.

But again, I emphasize, temptation does not equal sin yet. We know that because, and you can just make a note of Hebrews 4 verse 15. Hebrews 4 verse 15 is where it's talking about we have this great high priest who's passed into the heavens, and that we go boldly to the throne of grace to find help. But it says there in verse 15 that Jesus was tempted in all points as we are yet without sin. That tells us that just having the influence, the thought to do something wrong, that is not sin yet. It also tells us that we have a high priest, elder brother, savior, who knows what it's like. And I think that's why God, as it says, has turned all judgment over to the Son. He was here. He knows what we go through. Sin has its roots in a temptation. A temptation, we could also say, is an appeal to the carnal human mind to think and act contrary to God's law.

It is an appeal to the carnal human mind to think and act contrary to the law of God. Because, you see, the sin might just be the thinking process like Jesus took in the Sermon on the Mount, many of the commandments. You've heard of old time, you shall not commit adultery, but I say to you, you look at another, you know, a person who's not your spouse with lust. You've committed that sin already. So it can be the thought, it can be the action that follows.

Temptation is different for each of us. Most of us are going to have one or two or three areas where we really have big trials. I thank God that I have always been repulsed by cigarette smoke.

I can walk into a convenience store. I can go in to pay for gasoline. And if two or three are puffing on cigarettes, it repulses me. However, in God's church, we have people who have fought valiantly with that, or maybe they put that behind them years before, and they walk in.

And it is. It is a challenge, because that smell triggers so many memories.

And it might be a temptation for one member where it's not for many others.

The same could be said of alcohol. The same could be said of, what, sexual interest? The same could be said of power. Some members, they don't want the power. Other members are just something driving them to go after that. Let's go to 1 Thessalonians 3. 1 Thessalonians 3, we have here a name used for Satan the devil. And he's the one we're talking about. He is the one behind temptation.

1 Thessalonians 3 verse 5, For this reason, when I could no longer endure it, I sent to know your faith, lest by some means the tempter had tempted you, and our labor might be in vain.

Now chronologically, 1 Thessalonians is one of his earliest letters. But he had been there, and he had given his life hard work. He had invested a lot there. And quite often in his letters, he's got a report from Timothy caught up to him, someone else caught up to him, and he was able to know how the congregation was doing. But his fear was that he would hear that the tempter had gotten in there and had turned them all astray. And that has happened. If you go back, some of you remember in Mr. Herbert Armstrong's earliest experience back in the 1930s, beginning his ministry, and having a campaign, and having a group of people, and getting it up off the ground and running, and then moving on elsewhere and finding out that nothing remained of the congregation later. It can't happen. We have, Satan the devil, the tempter. It is of his nature to strive to draw us away, to pull or to bend our, what those of us in the church should have as a God-focused will, but to influence it, to turn toward his will. One place in the writings of the prophet Daniel, he talked about that fourth beast in that one chapter. He wanted to know more.

And then that power behind that fourth beast, it was to steadily and surely wear out the saints of the Most High. One more, let's go to John 8, and then we're going to compare and contrast two different stories of temptation. Two stories with completely different outcomes. John 8 verse 44, speaking to some of the Jews of his day, some who were so proud to have Abraham as their father, and yet so blind to what Christ was trying to teach them.

John 8 verse 44, very plain blunt words here. He said, You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do.

He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. So you're of your father the devil, he told them. They wanted to do his desires. He was the father of temptation and influencing them in that direction. There are pieces of the puzzle of the biblical record that we just don't have. I'd like to know more about that process that had to have taken place. If you go long back before there was a physical universe, or after that point, it says the angel shouted for joy at the creation of the universe. Then you've got little pieces here and there like Revelation 12, the early verses talk about the great red dragon, his tale drew one-third of the stars of heaven.

Revelation identified stars as being angels. I'd like to have more of that story.

How did Satan do it? We've got Ezekiel 28 that says, you were perfect till iniquity was found in you. And it says you were lifted up or puffed up because of the multitude of your merchandise.

And so we have enough to realize that this great archangel turned away from the way of God and was able to get every third angel to follow him. I suspect he used the same types of poise that he uses today. The Bible does say that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

I think the statement in principle could be said about Satan because as we look at these two examples next of his temptations, the influence that he sought over these individuals involved, it's the same old thing, same old story, separated by thousands of years. And we need to go back and realize that he's going to work on us in the same way. The carnal mind has already given into his influence, and so it becomes second nature. You give in to one sin, it's that much easier the next time to follow in the same footsteps. But his envy and jealousy and his grab for power began to permeate the thinking and actions of those around him until the rebellion. Let's look, first of all, back in Genesis 3. We have a story here of the first man and his wife.

The first part here is largely of Eve, and then Adam is involved, but then the two together.

We have the temptation and the story of the failure of Adam and Eve. A colossal flop took place, but we need to look at it. It's written here for our learning.

The first Adam and his wife failed, and then we'll look at another time when there was a temptation.

Same source, Satan the devil, same source, the tempter as he's called, and he went against the Son of Man. And we have a resounding victory that Jesus had at that time. Genesis 3, verse 1. We'll look at the first seven verses, and I think that's as far as we need to read for our purpose today. Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which God had made.

He manifested as a serpent, and of course, back in Revelation 12, he's called that great serpent.

A red dragon in one place, and then the old serpent, Satan the devil in another one.

But he manifested in this way. Now Adam and Eve had only recently been created, and you and I have 6,000 years of hindsight. Most human beings, not all, most human beings, when you go out here and you see a snake, we kind of step back, if not run from it. I don't like snakes, but I've run into quite a number of them. Eve had no reason, though, at this point to recoil.

Now he's a serpent, and then later after the punishment, he's to go on his belly. So, again, a lot of the explanation we aren't given, but he manifested in that way.

And, you know, he's called a roaring lion.

In, was it James or is it 1 Peter? A roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.

He is likened to a serpent, a snake. And, again, the tactics have certain similarities.

And he said to the woman, Has God indeed said? Now, as I read that, you begin immediately to get the attitude. We want to read the attitude behind. It is sarcastic. It is cunning. It is negative. It is diabolical.

Has God indeed said? It's worded to begin to inject a bit of doubt. Now, when he went against Jesus Christ, every time he used that word, if, if you be the Son of God, he's always trying that door to an individual's faith.

You shall not eat of every tree of the garden. Well, we know in the previous chapter, God had told them, there are all of these trees. There's all of this fruit. You can freely eat of all of them but one. And so she knew full well what God had said. But again, Satan always takes truth and twists it, or truth and mixes in a little error to catch people unaware, off guard.

I should mention in fact, keep your place there. Let's just look at 2 Corinthians 11, and just be reminded here that Satan and those who work for him will always present themselves as something that they aren't.

2 Corinthians 11, verse 13, he's speaking about false work, false apostles and deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. Verse 14, and no wonder for Satan, and Satan is the power behind those false apostles, for Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore, it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works. So we need to file that one away, and to remember, it's not just Satan, but it is his spirit being cronies, the demons, and it is those who have swallowed hook, line, and sinker, his line and his attitude, including a lot of people who, in the name of religion, will proclaim to be working on God's behalf. Let's continue back here in Genesis, chapter 3 now. Okay, you shall not eat of every tree of the garden. Let's pause and think there.

God has designed within human beings certain basic needs. We need to be able to eat. We need to be able to drink. There are needs for clothing. Well, maybe not at this point, but it was going to come soon. We think we've got to have transportation, and in the way our world works, it's nice to have transportation and get around. There's a need for shelter. There are drives that God has designed. There is a powerful sex drive within human beings, again, that God created for a right use within his law and his purpose. Verse 2, and the woman said to the serpent, do you ever read this and wonder why did she ever respond? Well, we can't look back and cast stones. We've got 6,000 years of history, and we can't cast stones because in different ways and in different means, manners, we've done the same thing. We've allowed Satan the devil to seek to sell his attitudes to us many, many times. The woman said to the serpent, we may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden. God has said, you shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it lest you die. Now, I'm going to leave that debate behind for others, but some have suggested God said you just can't have that fruit from this tree. Some have suggested she added in, you shall not touch it, but I don't see that we have enough given to us here in the passage. So, Satan approached her by means of one of the great needs of every human being. If we want to continue living, we have to have nourishment, and so he hid her in the area of food. Now, think through biblical examples. How many times do we see that play out where someone was overthrown?

There's a man whose name was Esau, and he was famished once upon a time, and he quickly sold out his birthright for a bowl of bean soup. We look, it doesn't just have to be this drive for food, look at the sex drive. We've got examples of Samson. He said to his parents that he had seen this woman of the Philistines, and she pleases me, and go get her for me. He saw what he wanted, and he had this uncontrolled passion. We see that again playing out in his life with the story of Delilah. We have the story of King David, and he looks across and sees someone bathing, and you know the rest of that story. It led down the path of adultery, and then of plotting and being deceitful, and it led to ordering a murder. And so, we have many examples, and Satan the devil has the same modus operandi today. He uses the same methods to operate by today. He attacks us within the realm of basic needs that God designed within all of us, needs that we have. But like Eve, he attacks with a desire for something that simply is not ours to have. It sounds so good at first, and sounds so bad when everything goes up in smoke later.

All right, let's go on to verses 4 and 5. Verse 4, the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die. And of course, many have suggested this is the Genesis. This is the beginning of the teaching of the immortal soul. God had clearly told them, you take of this fruit that's not yours, you will die. And Satan got her to listening to him, and then he just drops this blatant lie, you will not die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened.

You will be like God, knowing good and evil. Now, we have a whole new world that has opened up here. He started with appealing to the drive to eat, but now he begins throwing in there. He challenged her to, well, you need to think for yourself. Now, you and I live in a curious time. We live in the day and age where so many people worship the almighty human mind and human reasoning. And, you know, the Scripture tells us about that human mind. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. But there are people who succumb to that, and worshiping the things that the human mind can come up with. He offered her the power. So he appealed to her vanity, he appealed, or he offered power that she could now decide what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is evil. She didn't need God for that. He also injected doubt regarding what God had clearly said to them. And, as we know, she swallowed this. She swallowed his temptation of taking food, of walking the path of pride, and of going for the power. She swallowed those lies.

Most temptation is going to come back down to the basic facts that it will involve doubt, lust, vanity, and power. I mean, those really are main categories that they're going to fall into. We have, again, many examples in the Bible. We have the story of Philip going down to Samaria, preaching, baptizing, Peter and John going back down, laying hands on praying for those who had been baptized, and this Simon, the magician, recognized, or however what means it happened, he recognized that when the apostles did that, the Spirit of God was given to those people.

And he made no attempt to cover up at all. He said, I want the power, I want it now, and I'll pay handsomely for it when Peter told him, you and your money go into perdition. We have stories in the Gospels of the disciples who were unconverted at that time, but you know, James and John, they were the so-called sons of thunder. Lord, do you want us to go call down fire from heaven?

Which would have been a horrible abuse of power, but later in the ministry, we had one account says the wife of Zebedee came. Can my son sit on your right and left hand? Another account says James and John were involved in that, too, but they were concerned about who's going to be greatest in the kingdom. They wanted the power. They wanted the recognition. We have so many times across our years in the Church of God seen those who have wanted the power. They have succumbed to desire for power. Always beware those who go after power. Take a short route to power. Those who politic, those who promote themselves, somewhere down the line, it's going to implode. And at least we can say they're not being led by the Spirit of God to do so. Verse 6, so when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and you know, I'm sure that it looked really good to her. In fact, maybe it looked better than any other piece of fruit hanging around there, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise she took of its fruit. So we see what James 1 had said.

There's temptation, and then it conceives, and then it leads to sin. And sin, as James said, is going to lead to what God had already told Adam and Eve. You take of that fruit, you are going to die. She ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. Now, in one of Paul's epistles, it tells us a little bit more here that Eve was deceived. She was completely, totally, she bought into the lies of Satan. But Paul also told us that Adam was not deceived. So which is the worst sin? You know, that'd be a debate for another time. The one who succumbed to temptation and gave in, but she was blinded, she was deceived. Or the one who had his eyes open and knew good and well what was going on, and he went ahead with it anyhow. Well, the bottom line is they both sinned.

He ate. Verse 7. Then the eyes of both of them were opened. That's the way sin is. Sin, whatever it is for us, it offers things. As I like to put it, it'll write you checks that it can't cash later on. It will tell you all the great and wonderful things that'll happen to you if you just go over there and you fill in the blank. Take a drag on that cigar, or kiss that person who's not your spouse, and it'll promise all of this pleasure and enjoyment. But it can't offer that because in reality it brings heartache. It destroys. Sin always destroys everything it touches. And they knew that they were naked. Some things have happened to their minds. Now Satan had worked from the inside in the mind, and that led to taking action on the outside. They knew they were naked. They sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. Thoughts lead to actions. Temptation leads to sin.

And whenever we give in to temptation, something happens to our mind as well. You know, probably for... again, I've used this example of the smoker. I've known so many. I knew so many in my family who smoked. And maybe it was at age 14 somebody in school had some cigarettes, and the first time they took a drag on that, of course, they probably coughed their lungs out for a while, but it is so addictive. I mean, the medical science has found that the addiction to nicotine is one of the most difficult to ever address and struggle with. But the first time you do something makes it so much easier, the second, the third, and then a lifetime of it. Something happens to the mind, the person who takes the first drink of alcohol, and then it changes things. The person who is in a marriage the first time they begin fantasizing about somebody else who's not their spouse, and maybe initial steps are taken, and something changes in the mind. Whenever we give in temptation, something happens to the mind. Our vision becomes clouded. We cannot see as clearly as we could see before. Light shines into water. It bends it. It refracts it. Light that comes into the weather lens in our eyes. It's actually inverted where the brain adjusts. The light comes in, and the image you're looking at actually turns upside down back on the retina.

The brain adjusts. A lot of us have vision problems where it doesn't focus quite the right way. The eye is too short. It's too long, and we have these cheaters, these lenses, other lenses, to help compensate for that. So, again, thankfully with temptation and then sin, God gives us ways to compensate and to work around that. But only God can help resisting the invisible influence of Satan's temptations, and only the power of the Holy Spirit can counteract the power of Satan's temptations. Now, let us contrast this. Let us compare this with what we read. We'll go to Matthew's account, Matthew 4. Matthew gives just a little bit more than... well, Mark just covers it in passing, but a little bit more here than Luke. Matthew 4. We have the second Adam, as he is to be called later. The second Adam arrives, and actually, if we'd go back to his birth, we find that Satan was there ready to destroy him. Chapter 2 tells the story of the wise men coming and looking, and they're looking for King of the Jews, inherit one of them, come back and tell me what you find, and then he realizes they didn't come back, so he orders this massacre of all the male children in and around Bethlehem, aged two and under. Satan tried his dead-level best to destroy the Christ baby, Jesus, when he was a baby. That didn't work. The family had gone to Egypt. They came back after Herod the Great died. But 30 years later, he's still there, and that ought to remind us of something. Some of us have been around God's church for 20 and 30 and 40 and 50 years.

And you know, the date of my baptism was over 40 years, a little over 40 years now.

And Satan was there when God first called us, began working in our lives, and he's not going anywhere. He'd be there waiting for us. If he can't get us then, he'll try, and if he can't get us then, he'll try again. And like here with Jesus Christ, he tried to kill him when he was a baby, and now here before he starts his ministry, we have the story of the baptism, the symbolic coming of the dove and the lighting of the Holy Spirit. But before he began his ministry in verse 17, Matthew 4, the first order of the day was he had to face Satan the devil. The second Adam had to do that which the first Adam and his wife did not do and could not do. At this point, Satan pulls out all stops, and he did not let up. He continued throughout the ministry of Christ. He continued all the way to the very end, all the way to that night when Jesus was praying to his father, if there's any way, let this cup pass from me, because he knew what was ahead. But in verses 1 and 2, we find something that we did not read back in Genesis 3.

Verse 4, then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. So the tempter is the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights afterward, he was hungry. And here's something we should take note of.

He wanted to draw as close to his father as he possibly could before he went one-on-one against the current God of this world, Satan the devil. He wanted to be completely one with his father on the same wavelength. He wanted to be able to clearly think. He wanted to be able to see clearly.

And drawing close to God and staying close to God is one of our primary keys, as I'll enumerate a few as we get to the end of the message. That's a primary key to enduring in the face of Satan's temptation. Let's notice the first temptation in verses 3 and 4.

Now, when the tempter came to him, he said, if... All right. Kind of sounds like a phrase from Genesis 3, where he first said, Has God not said? He's seeking to try the door to the mind. Is there any doubt?

Is there a weakness here? Is there a way I can get a foot in the door? If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.

But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Now, we have a number of things to notice here.

First of all, he tries to inject doubt. Next, he appeals to the basic drive of any human being we've got to eat and we've got to drink or we will die in time. You and I cannot begin to fathom a 40 day, 40 night fast. I can't. Cannot at all. The first thing he did was see these stones. If you're the Son of God, make them bread. In other words, take the easy route. Take the quick route. Get something to eat. But Jesus replied and his reply was that he quoted Scripture. He quotes from back in Deuteronomy 8 verse 3. That man shall not live. That's Deuteronomy 8. We're talking about God's reminding them how He fed them. Man all those years, the bread from heaven, to humble them and to try them. But man shall not live by bread alone. It's not time for that bread. That would come a little later. But by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. So again, we see the appeal to the basic drive of eating. We see here that at this moment, it wasn't of the will of God yet to eat. And so it would have been disobedient. It is always wrong to act contrary to the will of God.

It is always wrong to give in to the pulls of the devil.

There are times when members of the church have been around individuals who are obviously demon possessed. And it is something of their nature to try to begin to get you to do what they say.

They might say, well, sit in this chair over here. Well, sit down and drink this now.

And the best thing we can do is say, no, just go sit somewhere else. Not where they tell you to.

But again, hopefully you won't run into that.

Jesus answered by quoting Scripture. All right, verses 5 through 7. We have the second temptation. Then the devil took him up into the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple. Now, some have suggested this is over 200 feet high. You know, 200 feet down to the it's an arid region, a rocky bottom down below. To throw yourself off, we realize that probably means death. In the most cases, probably a painful, very painful death. And said to him, if, see, each one has this word, if, if you are the Son of God, throw yourself down for it is written.

Now, here he has a new ploy. Even Shakespeare understood this. As Shakespeare in one of his plays, he said that the devil doth cite Scripture for his purpose. And Satan and demons and human beings who are on their payroll, shall I say, they will quote Scripture. But again, there's a little twist. It's not coming straight at you. It's a knuckleball kind of moving around on you.

He shall give his angels charge over you. So he quotes from back in. And now, let's see, where's that Psalm 91? He quotes from that. It's an actual quote from the Word of God, but he's misapplying it.

And he quotes from the next verse back in Psalm 91. In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against the stone. And so, here he tries the door to Christ's mind. Again, wondering, is there any doubt? And now, he's also wondering, is there any pride? Any pride to decide to just take the quick route, throw yourself off, the angels will catch you. He appealed to vanity. He appealed to the vanity that he had found in the first Adam and his wife.

But he was finding that the Son of Man was devoid of vanity.

Satan attacks in areas of a person's greatest strength. You know, you look back at biblical examples. Peter. Peter's a marvelous study. We have so much about Peter there in the Gospels. He was by nature the dominant one of the 12th. The others might have been thinking it, but Peter would just spit it out. He'd just say it. Peter would just go charging right in on situations. And there are times when he took his licks. He took his licks. Christ said, Satan's tried to sift you like wheat.

Peter, Christ had asked if anyone has a sword. Well, they went and bought the two swords because it was important to fulfill the Scripture, the prophecy that said he'll be accounted, numbered with transgressors. But when here came the betrayal, and the leaders with the soldiers, and the high priest's servant was there, and it kind of reads like Peter's the one, and grabbed that sword, and he missed his mark. And I'm sure he meant to center it right on top of his head, but he got an ear. And Christ told him, you know what he said, put that away. And he healed that. But Peter had so many marvelous talents, but Satan worked there to turn him quickly away.

Peter was so all-fired sure he would never deny his Lord and Master. And yet, as Christ had said, before the cock crows a second time, you're going to have done it three times. And we read of how that happened. And so, at times, we see people with the greatest of strengths, tremendous servants in the church, year after year after year, and maybe after a while, Satan gets a foot into the mind, and they want more. You know, maybe pride gets in there. And this is my area of service.

And you can't take it and give it to somebody else. I mean, people have been destroyed by that.

Well, let's go on then and look at the final, the third temptation, verses 8 and 9.

Again, the devil took him up on an exceedingly high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, all these things I will give you. Now, we realize that from the account here, there's no discussion about, there's no question raised regarding whether Satan had these kingdoms to offer. He did. And to this day, he does have these kingdoms. He is God of this age, God of this world. But then he says, if you will fall down and worship me. Then Jesus said to him, away with you Satan, for it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God and him only you shall serve. Then the devil left him and behold angels came and ministered to him. So he tried the door to see if Jesus would succumb to taking the short and the quick path to power. Obviously, he knows what the prophets say. He is to come and to be king of all kings. He is to be king over Israel and in all peoples. He is that child who would be born and to him would be given the government forever and ever. And so he wanted to see if he would succumb to being seduced to go for the power to take the quick path, the short path.

Always beware those who have an insatiable lust for power who are giving into that.

We have human beings who are that way. They will run over anyone who gets in their way.

That's as far as we need to read here, but you may want to keep your place in Matthew. We'll come back to chapter 6 in just a moment. 1 John 2. Let's read verses 15 through 17, because here we find that decades later, the apostle John is writing. If those events of the temptations took place right in the late 20s, here we are 40, 50, maybe even more than that, years later.

And the apostle John is writing to warn the church or his little children, as he repeatedly called them, and he cautioned them. Interestingly, he cautions them about the same three things.

Satan is going to appeal to us through the world around us for physical things, for pride, and for power. So in verse 15, do not love the world or the things in the world.

If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and that's where it began with Eve, she looked at the fruit, it was pleasant to the eyes, and desirous to make one wise. The lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world, and the world is passing away in the lust of it, but he who does the will of God abides forever. Temptation generally is going to focus on these major areas of choosing the physical, choosing things of this world, or choosing the path to pride or the path to power. And Satan continues to use those on us. Let's go back to Matthew, this time to chapter 6. Luke's account of this same event, he said, the disciples asked Jesus teach us to pray. And in Matthew 6, we just read one verse from this sample prayer that he gave.

Verse 13, do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

And that's as far as we need to read. Jesus taught us to pray, don't lead us into temptation. Deliver us. That's an appeal to strength that we don't have, strength from God, to resist the devil. Temptations will come, but he taught us to pray that you do not face temptation, certainly on your own limited power. If we go against Satan's temptation on our own, we're going to have a story like Adam's and Eve's. But if we're close to our father and to our elder brother, our story can be like that that we read of Jesus Christ. If we forget how weak we truly are, it can lead us to let down our defenses. If we let down defenses, then we might be tempted to go into situations where we're going to have temptation we don't need. Human nature is naturally attracted to temptation. But we read in chapter 4 that at the end of the three, Jesus took the offensive and commanded him to depart, and Satan left. And Satan was the one who had to pack up and get out of dodge. Too many times, I think, we're not as aggressive as we need to be in dealing with temptation. Of course, any time we face a temptation, the power that we have is always in the name of Jesus Christ. On our own, we can do nothing. In fact, Jesus said that one time during his ministry of my own self, I can do nothing. As we look at these two and we compare them, let's now draw a few quick points. A few quick points, we're going to move through them fast. Number one, stay close to God. Stating it that way, assumes, understands that we are close to God.

We have to be close to God. The second Adam set that example, and he was victorious.

Philippians 2 verse 5, you can just make a note of that. Philippians 2 verse 5, let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus. We cannot go into spiritual battle on just our power, or we will fail. We must have the power of God. Number two, carefully obey God.

Adam and Eve didn't do that, but Jesus, of course, perfectly obeyed God. We need to be uncompromising with what is clearly God's Word and God's will. Never get comfortable failing to study, failing to pray, failing. Sometimes we have those who will begin to lay out from church. And you know, if I don't come to church, and I thank God, I get to go twice each Sabbath. But if we don't go to church and we rub shoulders of people like mine, there's a strength, there's an energy, there's a synergy, and we start starving if we don't have that. Carefully obey God. Number three, search the Scriptures daily. Search the Scriptures daily. That's what the Bereans did, Acts 17 verse 11. But as we've seen, Satan knows how to quote Scripture for his own purpose.

And he will inject a little error. It may sound so good, it may look so good, but there's a little error, and there's a hook on the end of that. There's a barb on the end of that hook. So we need to know the Bible, know it well. Beware of man's interpretations. Go to what God says, and follow that. We are to study to show ourselves to prove unto God. Number four, know your limitations. Know your limitations. Time for a movie quote. We guys have to do that, don't we? Movie quotes. Plant Eastwood as Dirty Harry. I don't remember which one of them. There were about four of those movies, but at one point he said, a man's got to know his limitations.

We need to know our limitations as well. And there are places where there are temptations we just cannot afford to play with. And there are Scriptures that tell us flee idolatry or flee fornication. Joseph set that example. He got in a situation, got out of control. He was innocent, didn't know he was in the home alone with Mrs. Potiphar. He paid for it, but he got out of there.

He got out of there. Number five is compensate. Number five is compensate. And you can make a note of this passage. Ephesians 4, 22 through 32. 22 through 32. To put sin out of our life, or for that matter, to put temptation out of our mind. Fill your mind with something right and good.

Ephesians 4, those verses are where Paul gives what I call the principle of compensation. Let he who stole steal no more, but work with his hands to give to others in need. He says, let no corrupt communication come out of your mouth, but the things that are going to edify other people.

And so he talks about compensating, or as he put it in another place when he wrote to those at Rome, overcome evil by good. Number six, keep your guard up. Number six, keep your guard up.

Jesus went with the disciples to Gethsemane, left the disciples, took Peter James down a little further. He went on and he prayed. He came back and kept finding them asleep. And he said to them, watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. And so to me, he's saying, be awake, be alert, be on guard, be vigilant, because Satan wants to destroy every one of us. And then finally, number seven, stay in the fight. Stay in the fight. Yes, Satan came after Jesus when he was born. He came after him 30 years later, until his last breath went out. He's going to continue to come after us. He wants to see if we're going to get tired and give up the battle. You know, we'll look as we get to Unleavened Bread, probably at the example of Israel. They had to pick up one foot and put in front of the other, begin walking out of Egypt. They walked a long, long way. 40 years later, they had to pick up once again and walk through that Jordan Dry River Valley and walk into the area around Gilgal. Use the power of will and choose to counterbalance the power of temptation by staying in the fight and struggling to take the kingdom.

Let's end back in James 1, where we began.

James 1, and this time we'll reread verse 12.

James 1 verse 12, Blessed is the man who endures temptation, for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love him.

So let us understand the roots of sin by looking at where it begins, and that is with temptation.

Temptation is one of the most powerful, invisible, spiritual forces, and we face it every day of our lives. But the Spirit of God is a Spirit of power, and with God's help, all things are possible.