The Lust of the Flesh

So, we've started a new series. This is part two of three. So last week was part one of this series. That we're going through the two trees. Specifically, we're going to, in this series, go through the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. As we talk about building a relationship with God, it's super important to understand because there is something that Satan does to interrupt your relationship, to hijack it, to take it somewhere else.

And he's done this from the start to the finish. And I think sometimes we forget it. So, we want to repeat this, not repeat it, but cover it over and over in different ways. There's three ways that are specifically talked about when we talk about the two trees. Last week we talked about the first way, which is the pride of life, or pride.

If you haven't heard or listened to that one, that one is a fundamental one to understand because pride is something that is underneath a lot of the sins that we commit. And pride is something that if you have, you cannot have a relationship with God. God resists the proud. In fact, in Psalms it says, He keeps them at arm's distance. And that doesn't sound like a relationship when you're at arm's distance with God. Pride is something that God is very, very particular about.

Making sure is not there because He was surrounded and Satan was there at the throne. And is a being who had pride and is called the father of the pride, or those who are proud. And He is not going to have that. So when you look in the Bible, it's one of the most often mentioned sins. It's one of the most often addressed subjects. When Moses struck the rock and all the other things that you see in the Bible, pride is something that is super critical for us to understand.

The only problem is it's super hard for us to see in ourselves. It's very hard for us to see in ourselves. But it's a fundamental thing that will drive a wedge between you and God. And this is a tool that Satan knows and Satan uses. And that's the first part of the thing that he uses. Today I want to talk about the second part, though. This is part two, when we talk about the two trees. And that is the lust of the flesh. Now, there's the four scriptures that we covered before. Let me just put these up here. If you look at 1 John 2, 16, Genesis 3, 6, Judel, verse 11, and then look at Matthew 4, where Christ was tempted, we'll see that these three things are repeated.

There's a theme in the Bible that if you start to look for it, you'll see it repeated in a lot of different ways. So if I take those scriptures, let me just build this out. I think the cold air is affecting the remote. It's going slower through the air. So if you look at these three scriptures, that's not true. I'm a techie guy and that's totally not true. Okay, so these three scripts, four scriptures here, if you look at the three things that are mentioned in them, they're repeated over and over. Now, why do I keep covering this? I really feel this is a fundamental thing that is important to understand in the Christian life.

Of all that's of the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, Genesis talks about good for food, pleasant to the eyes, desirable to make one wise. Jud gives us three examples of people.

Christ was tempted three different ways that are outlined there. Now, if we stack these things up next to each other, and you start with 1 John 2, 16, lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and pride of life, and you stack Genesis next to that, what we have is, if you think about those three things, they're exactly the same three things that are mentioned. So the New Testament talks about how the world is, all that's in the world and of the world.

Genesis is, at the foundation of the world, the way that Satan went and talked to Adam and Eve, and these are the things that appealed. These are the things that he put in front of them to trip them up, were these three things. Now, if we add to that the three examples listed in Jude, you can see, Jude 11 calls out three things. Those three people had three different specific issues in the Bible, if you remember them. Korah had a rebellion, he thought he was just as good as Moses, and that he could be in charge, and he lifted himself up with his pride, and then God took care of that and the people that joined in with that.

Balaam, if you remember, he was called to curse Israel, and he so wanted the money that he was offered. What he was drawn to, the lust of the eyes, was that money he had to have. Lust of the flesh, you line that up with Cain. And we'll come back to this, because Cain, the example of Cain, is an interesting one.

It gives us a bit more insight when we talk about lust of the flesh, what that means. Now, let's add to that even one more additional scripture.

So, Matthew 4. When we look at the same things that Satan used against Christ, it's the exact same three things.

Over and over and over and over. Why does he do this? Is he stuck? He knows they were. How did Christ approach this? He fasted for 40 days, because he knew this. He tempted Christ with bread. Christ was fasting, and he tempted him with bread. Lust of the eyes. He showed him all the kingdoms of the world. He said, Man, look at all of this. You can see with your eyes. You could have this. You could have this. He also tempted him to skip the humiliating death that he was going to go through.

Appealing to his pride. Appealing to him as a ruler and a king. Intervening in the world. Showing him the kingdoms. If you just bow down to me, you can skip all of this. What you see is the way that Satan works and the way that Satan talks is by these three things.

It's by these three things. In fact, in the Bible, there's a scripture about Sodom in Ezekiel 16, verse 49. So, we know Sodom, the city of where it ended up. This scripture, when you read it, Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom. What was the problem with Sodom? One, pride. Two, fullness of bread. Three, an abundance of idleness was in her and her daughters. Neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and the needy. If you look at the description that is described about Sodom, how far she had gone was all the way down these three things.

It's basically what the scripture is saying. She had pride. The abundance, lust of the eyes. They didn't take care of the poor and the needy. It was all about them and their idleness, and then they had fullness of bread, lust of the flesh, gluttony, and all the rest of it. Their whole lifestyle was to the nth degree of these three things. When a society gets so far down this path, what happened? Where does it lead to? What does it produce? And you see what happened in Sodom and Gomorrah, and you see what God did to take care of them as well.

So, why is this important? Why don't we keep talking about this? Why is this important? Because when we look at the example of Adam and Eve, when Eve responded to Satan, Satan approached and said this to her.

Think of this yourself as well. A lot of times the response that we should give, and that we do give, is of God's Word. We will quote God's Word, and this is what she did. God had told them. So, she's quoting the Word that God said. God said that we can eat of all those other trees over there, but just not touch that one over there. So, her response is right. Intellectually, yep, God has told me this. I know the words of God, and he has said this to me. But the problem is, what made her cave? It wasn't a doctrinal argument that made her cave.

It was the poles, the emotional, the physical, the sensual poles, too great. This is what overwhelmed her. This is what made her...you remember it said, when she saw that it was good to the eye, good, pleasant, desirable to make one wise. When you look at the things that it said, those were the poles, the emotional, the physical, the poles on her. And this is the thing that put her over the edge, and Satan knows this. A lot of times we say, yep, it's sometimes a doctrinal argument. Sometimes things are behind it is the pride that somebody has.

They would rather, you know, they want to be in charge, or they want to be somewhat people look up to. There's something that's behind some of these things, and sometimes people get wrapped up into that. So you have to look underneath. These three things, a lot of times, when there's temptation, when there's sin involved, it's going to be one of these three things that pulls people off, that takes them down the wrong path, that makes them go the wrong way. It's not just necessarily an intellectual conversation that you're having.

It's these poles. Satan knows this. This is what he does. Why is it important to us, too? I mean, if we think about how many people are second or third generation Christians in the room? Right? Any fourth generation Christians? There's quite a bit in this room. I'm third generation Christian, myself. My granddad was in the church. He's actually a minister in the church a long time ago. He's since died since then. But we have a lot of knowledge.

We claim a lot of knowledge. We claim a lot of intellectual ability to say we have the right doctrines. We have this. This is what we have, and then we hold on to just that. We have the doctors. We have the law. Which we do. Which is correct. Not minimizing that. But what Satan did is the exact same thing with Eve. She quoted God's word, but then he wiped her out with these three things. It's very fundamental to understand that these three things are repeated, rinse and repeat, through the Bible, from the beginning of time, all the way to Christ's temptation, and it's repeated to us today, are these three things.

That's why we're taking this as a fundamental set of sermons to talk about. Because Satan put a wedge between God and man by using these three things. We talk about a relationship that we have. He'll put a wedge between you and God with one of these three things. You know what? Some of these are harder for certain people than others. Some people have a hard time not giving in to the pulls of the flesh.

Other people say, nope, I have no problem. I live a very militant life, a very disciplined, but yet they're proud of that. And they're proud of how humble they are. And if you think about all the nuances of this, it's going to be a different thing that probably is your pull. And it's important for you to understand that. When we think about ourselves, it's very important to be self-aware to understand, you know, this is a weakness I have.

This is what probably is something that would appeal to me. This is what kind of gets under my skin. This is kind of where I cave in. And it's usually one of these three things. So let's go through the second one. Last week we went through pride of life.

And again, I'd encourage you, if you haven't listened to that, to go back and listen to it. When we look at this, the lust of the flesh, that we see the example that's used there is Cain. Now at first we say Cain, and it says anger, and we think, that's the lust of the flesh. I don't know about you, but when we think about lust of the flesh, you know, we think about everything else. We think about drugs and pornography and, you know, alcohol and things like that.

But when I use the example of anger, I think that's quite an interesting example. Because the pulls of the flesh are not just, you know, those things by themselves. The pulls of the flesh are things that have to do with our carnal human nature as well. And anger is a great example, because that is a natural proclivity for us to have pulled on. And Cain, and God talked to him, and he said, you know, if you control this, you'll do well. If you don't overcome that, you know, then sin's at the door. And what happened to when he did not control that is he acted out on that, and he killed his brother. And so we see that when we talk about the lust of the flesh, it's what our flesh, our natural human nature, is drawn to go towards. Now, we read in the Bible, if we turn to Galatians 5.19, Galatians 5.19 lists or has a set of these things, or lists them. Galatians 5.19 to 21. I feel like building a little campfire up here. I don't know if that would go over well. Galatians 5, verse 19 says, And now the works of the flesh are evident, which are a number of things, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envies, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like, of which I tell you beforehand, just as I told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. We see the lust, the works. When we talk about the lust of the flesh, there are some natural inclinations we have. When you give into those things, they become works. They become an outcome, a way. This is how they work when you do those things. So for example, anger underneath, that's a pull you give into it, turns into things like these, contentions and jealousies, outbursts of wrath. There's a whole bunch of things that those pulls and those things turn into, and they work this type of a fruit. We talk a lot of times about looking at the fruits, and this is an important concept as well. Because somebody can be put together, or look put together, can act and sound great, but produces a wake of this stuff all behind them, and it's the fruit that you have to look at.

If you see this type of a fruit, then there is something behind that underneath. That's why pride is an important one to deal with, because that's something you don't see outwardly necessarily. And that's why when you see this, there's other pulls of the flesh that if you're not dealt with, these things come out.

Angers, jealousies, things that happen that are pulls of the flesh cause havoc and wreak havoc and produce a fruit like these. And it's important to look at the fruit for that. Now, how does this process take place? Let's turn back to James. James 1, verse 12 to 15 is some key scriptures here. Because Satan will come along, and he will tempt you with things that pull at those natural inclinations that you have. James 1, verse 12 to 15 says, 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. 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 that desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin. And sin, when it is full grown, brings forth death. This is a very key scripture of how this whole process works. There is a couple words. The word temptation in the Bible is interesting. God doesn't tempt people. Tempt people to try to sin. There is a being that does, that's Satan. He tempts people, you, to try to sin. God does not tempt. There is another word that can be translated and used in two contexts. He tests. Test and tempting are two different things. To test someone is not the same, it is to tempt someone. It says here that God does not tempt anyone. And it is important to understand what it is saying here, is that the reason that we are tempted is because of something that is taking place inside you, your own desires.

Desire is inside you. There are desires you and I have that will sometimes trip us up. And it is important to understand that the desire that you may have may be different than the desire you have. It is not the same thing. Somebody may never could care less about drinking a glass of alcohol.

Another person may struggle with that. And when they see a glass placed before them, be so tempted and overwhelmed and then just completely get drunk just from that. That desire is going to be different in a person, in each person in this room. It is going to be different for you and I. And that is important to understand because it is easy for somebody to sit back and say, I never don't care about drinking.

I don't know why you are such a weak person. Or maybe somebody has a background in drugs in their life. And each time it is presented to them, it is very hard and very, you know, a big thing for them to overcome. But there is a desire that each of us have and it is going to be different that is inside of you. And it is important for you to understand you to understand what those are for you. It is easy for us sometimes to pick them up for other people. But it is important for us to understand what they are for ourselves.

Because this is what Satan will do. He will present something to you to play to your desire, to try to get you to cave, to try to get you to go a certain way. And that will be different than the person next to you. But this is not God doing that. That is our own desires. And Satan tempting and probing. And while that didn't work that well, let me bring out a bigger gun. Let me try a bigger way and let me get at this person this way. And that is how he works.

But God does not do that. God does not tempt with evil. God does not do that type of thing. God does what is called testing. Testing is a little different. So God said this, and he says this through the Bible in different places. But back in Deuteronomy 8, he says, You should remember the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness to humble you and to test you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not.

A test is a different thing than a tempt. A test is like a quiz. I don't know if you remember back in school, but each week they'd give you a quiz or give you a pop quiz.

And it's just to see where are you at that point in time. Did you learn what you know? Did you learn this? Do you know your vocabulary words? Can you spell them correctly? A test is to know where you're at. Tempting is different. It's to try to trip you to sin. God tests Satan tempts. And you'll see that word, a lot of times used interchangeably, in the Bible, in different scriptures.

So if we look at this, Satan on the bottom, with the desires that are in your heart, the way he interacts with you is he tempts you. He will tempt you along those desires. He will try to get you to sin because he tries to get you to die. That's what it means when we say tempt. Because sin, when it's born and its natural progression leads to death.

God never does that. God never does that. God tests to see what is actually in there, what's in your heart. If you sin, he forgives that. He'll even, when you're stuck in sin, he can even rescue you out. You read that many times in the Bible. But what he does when he tests and how he works with us is to refine and purify that heart.

To purify those desires so they're not such a big pull. That stuff that's in your heart and those desires and those pulls, he works with. And he says, let me see, let me test to see where you're at. You remember the quiz every couple of weeks.

Let me test to see where you're at with this. Where's your heart with this? How far have you progressed in dropping some of that stuff? But he does not approach it and cannot approach that with trying to trip you up and cause you to sin. He tries to figure out where your heart is, and then he continues to refine that. If we read the Bible, there's many times it talks about the trials and the refining and turning into pure gold. And this is what God, that's what he's doing to your heart.

He's trying to lead your heart away from sin so that you may succeed, that you may live. If you look at those two ideas, those are two completely separate things. So when you read the Scriptures that talk about tempting or etc., you have to understand which one of these types of meanings that it's talking about. So when it says, count it all joy when you fall into various trials and testings, it's the top one. Why? Because you have a trust. You know the process. You know God's working with you to succeed. He's not doing something to trip you up.

He's not doing something to try to make you fail. He wants you to succeed. You have a God that wants you to succeed. You have an adversary that wants you to fail. And read the Scriptures, understand which one of those it means. That's how God works at the top. He cannot and he does not tempt with evil to trip you up. But he does say, what's in your heart? Let me test. Let me find out. And a lot of times that comes through different trials. So it's a big difference. And it's very important to understand those differences. Now how do we deal with these things when they happen?

How do we deal with the temptations of life? Well, I can tell you a couple strategies that don't work. First type of strategy, a failed strategy. I don't know if you've ever seen the monks and other things, which are very respectable discipline.

I'm not trying to. But their whole idea is that we keep ourselves completely away. In fact, there's some monks that are like, I'm going to sit on top of a post for 25 days and take myself away from any sort of temptation. And that's to resist these type of things. The idea is that you live a life where you have nothing. You never comes around you and you're never tempted.

Well, I can tell you that fails. I can tell you that fails. But put in the right circumstance, those, and I've seen, I've even read the stories. They go, a monk, and they'll live in a city, and all of a sudden they're over, you know, blown over by all the stuff that's there. Because they were never tested and strengthened in the gold and the character refined because they're just avoiding the entire process.

And Colossians tells us this. Colossians 2, verse 20, right? Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourself to regulations? Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle, which all concerning things which perish with the using. According to the commandments and the doctrines of men... So this is actually talking not just about avoiding things, but there's other secular, religious things that this is talking about, which I won't get into.

Gnosticism and other things. These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom, right? You see a monk sitting on top of Paul for 25 days, you're like, well, I could never do that. That's amazing. There's an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.

That's not a strategy. The Bible says, we'll work. That we have to be strengthened, we have to be tested, we have to face ourselves. We have to see these things, and we have to be refined by God so that they become less and less and less. So one failed strategy is, and sometimes we do this, is let's just avoid anything that ever bad could happen. You know, sometimes we have to face these things. I'm not saying go out and indulge yourself. I'm saying sometimes we can't be so scared.

We have to face that, and we have to be refined, and we have to work through those things. Another failed strategy that people use is, they quote Paul, right? Oh, wretched man that I am. You know, I'm just a horrible, horrible human, and nothing I can do except sin. So guess what I'm going to do? I'm just throwing in the towel, waving the white flag.

You know, it's just going to happen. I'm just going to sin anyway, so I might as well just call myself a wretched man and call it a day. Right? It's just to completely give in to that side of the world. That's not to be either. 1 John 4, 4 tells us, you're of God, little children, and overcome them. Whatever is born of God overcomes the world. Overcoming is a concept of God's children.

To overcome and to put out sin is a concept that God has. So just giving in to that and saying, that's just how I am. I just built that way. It's human. Paul says it. Making an excuse for the sin. In fact, a lot of times making an excuse for a sin goes back to pride underneath it. You give yourself an allowance to say, you know what? That's not really subject.

You know, I'm not subject to that law that God says. It's not really about me. And you give yourself an allowance to just go do something. And that, a lot of times, says pride underneath it. So there's a couple of failed strategies here. There's more you could probably think of. But I just want to call out the fact that there's a couple that are common that are failed strategies. So what do we do? What do we do when we're faced with these things? Let me go through a couple of antidotes for this. Let's look at Galatians 5.22. Galatians 5.22, a set of scriptures we've read a lot. It says, But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

There's a whole different set of fruits that can be produced. This is of God's Spirit. This is the fruit. When you see these type of fruits, that's of God's Spirit. When you see the other, that's our own nature, our own pride, our own workings, things that our desires inside. As James says, you know you desire, you war against each other. There's things inside that cause these things on the outside.

But when you see love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, these are the fruits of God's Spirit. And those who are Christ have crucified the flesh. I heard in the sermonette, which is very good, by the way. Thanks for that. Very clear understanding of those scriptures. Something else that we have to crucify is the flesh with its passions and desires. Again, we're back to that same thing. We have to actively think about putting that to death. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us walk in the Spirit.

We've crucified the flesh and let us walk. Now, we read this all the time. I read this all the time. But I'm not sure we do that, because the scriptures say over and over and over. Galatians 5, 16, just up. It says, I say, walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. The lust of the flesh is one of the pillars that Satan uses. How do you combat that according to the scriptures?

It says, walk in the Spirit. It doesn't say, wallow in your issues. It doesn't say, just give up. It doesn't say that I hope, or just I just prayed, and I hope God takes it away. God's not going to take away the temptation of, you know, he'll save you out of things.

But we have natural desires and pools of the flesh. Christ knew that. He fasted. The part of being human, He was tempted with in all points like us. And they pulled at Him, and He fasted, and He grappled with that. And He says, uh-uh, I get what you're going through. I went and I felt that. But the answer is not to just sit still.

The answer is a very simple statement. Walk in the Spirit. Walk. What does that mean? What does it mean to walk? What does it mean to walk? That's quite interesting. A lot of times when we look at this problem, we have to ask ourselves, where are we? There's a couple of stances you can take in life. There's a couple of stances you can live. One is actually just going backwards. You know what?

I threw on the towel, and I'm doing all of the less of the flesh. I'm just in there indulging myself, and whatever. I just gave up, and you're just completely down that path. There's another one, though, which is kind of in a defensive position. You're just struggling against these things. I'm just struggling against these things. All you're doing is sitting there, struggling against these things. That's a different position. That's in the middle. That's in kind of a limbo state. That is not walking, actually. That is a middle position.

That's not correct, either. There's another position which says, walk, movement, forward. Walking, movement, forward. That's a totally different position. The one on the left's not right, and the one in the middle is not correct, either. But to walk is the one that is correct. Remember back in college, you had a friend. It was quite interesting because when you're young, sometimes you can rack up credit card debts, and you're sitting there like, man, I don't know how I got myself into this, but I got a credit card debt, and you try to work through that.

You're barely making any money. He told me, he said, you know, I said, look, I'm just working to pay off my credit cards right now. Then I'll think about doing this. He says, no, you should do is you should save at the same time you're paying those things off.

You should build at the same time you're paying off the debt. You should put away at the same time you're chunking down the mistakes that you made, the same time. And what happens is, over a period of time, it'll cross to where, hey, I've got that paid off, but I also have momentum this way. Right? And you think about that concept. This is what it means to walk. Not to stand still and to wallow. Not to just, I just resist. I just to resist. But it is to walk in those ways. What is to say, I'm not a perfect person.

I am not got it all sorted out. I did not overcome it. I'm, you know, have arrived. But I'm going to walk forward in the ways of the Spirit of God. I am going to, I know I'm not perfect, but I'm going to reach out. I'm going to be kind.

I'm going to be loving. I'm going to give of myself. I'm going to do all these things that are the things of God. I'm going to start walking in them. Start moving. Just go. Do you know what happens with that? It says, don't be overcome with evil or by evil. But overcome evil with good. That's the same concept.

If you start walking in these things pretty soon, they start to be the most in your life. The most in your life. The biggest things in your life. The more powerful things in your life. They start to push out the other things. They start to make them less, less effective. They start to be less relevant. Because you're experiencing the way of God. You're knowing the way of God.

The strength, the love, the passion, the tenors, the kindness. You have to walk forward and do those things before you've completely arrived and overcome. If we're just sitting there, wallowing in it, you're not walking. If you're just sitting there, well, I just got overcome and I can't do anything with anybody or anybody in this congregation until I overcome. No. You can. You can. I'll give you a secret. A lot of people in this room are not perfect yet. I know that's shocking.

I know that's shocking. I'm raising my hand right there. Okay? It doesn't matter. Start walking. I know it sounds really simple, but you have to ask yourself, are you doing it? This is what you have to do. I have to ask myself that a lot of times. I'm stuck. I'm frustrated. This is hard. I'm grappling with this. I'm grappling. I'm like, you know what?

I'm not going to wallow in this. This is bitter. This is hard. I'm going to do something that's positive, that's forward-moving, forward-looking. And you know what? When you start to do those things, there's a spiritual principle here. This is what the Bible says. Walk in the Spirit, and you won't fulfill those things. Walk in the Spirit, and you won't fulfill those things. Repeat it many times. Romans 13, 12. Romans 13, 12. The night is far spent. The day is at hand. Therefore, let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light.

So, again, there are two things. We don't overcome. We do put away things. We don't just cast off. We don't just, oh, we've got to focus on this. We put on things. At the same time you're casting off, you're putting on things. You're putting on the armor of light. Let us walk properly, as in the day. Not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lust.

You see that pattern? You see how that works? Sounds simple, but I can tell you, you have to ask yourself, am I just actually doing that, or am I stuck over here? Am I stuck in a defensive position? Or have I actually picked my head up and started to walk forward in the way?

The other thing that it says here is, make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lust. Don't give yourself a provision. Don't give yourself an opportunity. If something's a problem, don't go near it. If your computer's a problem, don't do it. Give yourself a blocker. Do whatever you need to do to make not a provision for it. Don't go next to it. But this scripture also talks about not only casting off and making no provision, but we're putting on. Cast off, put on. Cast on, put on. Cast off, put on. Got too fast there. Cast things off and put things on.

We have to do both of those things. That is how we overcome. Nothing else will work. Nothing else will work. So start to walk. Walk in the Spirit. James 4 verse 7. James 4 verse 7 starts to address these issues in a fundamental spiritual level. It says, therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Welcome, man. Hey, come on in. I love all this stuff you're presenting me. He's just like, hey, great. Resist. Resist those things. Draw near to God. That's a forward walking thing.

You know what? Resist that, yes. But also walk forward. Draw near to God. God will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify you hearts, you double-minded. That's a really important one. It's not saying the same thing twice. It's saying two different things. Cleanse your hands.

Your hands in the Bible are the sins you're doing. You know, I'm out. My hand's doing things. I'm sinning. I'm this. This is you doing an action. Cleanse your hands. Meaning, stop sinning. Stop sinning. But that's only half of it. Stop the sin. But the problem...where does the problem come in that we found before? What's Satan tempting? He's tempting your desires. We have to purify our hearts. We have to start to address the desires that are inside of us, the hidden things. That's what that means. There's two full things. Yes, stop the sin. A lot of times we stop sinning and say, yep.

But what happens? You sit there and you're gritting your teeth. And, oh, I just really want that. I can't...in man, you go from white-knuckling it to completely obliterating yourself. Completely caving. Completely ruining everything. Why? You stop sinning for one or two years, but the desire is still in the heart. You have to address that desire, too.

When God tests, that's what He's testing. To know what's in your heart. The desire. You remember that? Back in the Scripture? When God tests, that's what He's saying. Hey, I want to find out where you're at on this. God will help you through that. Usually involves trials and other things to really squeeze and to figure out where your heart is.

Not to do you harm. To make sure that that's purified and becomes gold. Like solid gold. Purify your hearts. Lament and mourn and weep. You know, be serious about it. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and He will lift you up. Remember we read that last week, too. You humble yourself. Don't lift yourself up. God will resist you.

Humble yourself. God will lift you up. But it's an important part of us to realize we need to address the inside, the heart. If we are struggling with something and white-knuckling it, that's a sure sign that you're not addressing the desire that's in you. You still want it. You still want it somehow deep down, even though you've stopped it. You still want it. And this is the thing to not just stop the sin, cleanse your hands, but purify your hearts.

Think of it like that. So if you're white-knuckling it, I guarantee you, this is what will happen. You want it. Satan will go, it looks like a crack there. And he'll start, what's he going to do? He's going to throw one of those three things at you until you crack. Because he knows he's going to play on that desire to trip you up and cause you to sin. And this is what happens to us sometimes. We think we're going along great, and all of a sudden, boom, it's a train wreck. Because we didn't address the desire in the heart as God is purifying us.

So that's one thing. Let us walk and walk forward in the Spirit, and we won't fulfill the lust of the flesh. Let's look at the inside, the heart. Now, another important thing to start to address here is the concept of needs. Do you have needs? Are they legitimate needs? Like, what do you feel about needs? I know there's time in the church it's like if you have any sort of a need, it's considered a bad thing.

What does the world say about needs? Maslow has a hierarchy of needs. If you look at the hierarchy of needs, it says that there's certain things that you have to have in place. You know, physical safety, economic security, freedom from threats, then you start to get into social belonging. Then you have high self-esteem, and then you're a self-actualized person like on Star Trek. You're out saving the universe with this really high-minded way of doing everything. And this is what Maslow says of the basic needs of human beings.

If you look at this chart, I have to kind of go through these things. If I don't have physical safety, security, and freedom from threats, then I'm never going to reach the next level. My need wasn't met. Well, guess what? Guess what? There's two billion hungry kids in this world right now. Are their needs met on this hierarchy? You know, they're never going to self-actualize or be anything in this world, are they? Or can they? Is this thing true? This thing according to God's way, what did Paul say? Whatever circumstance I find myself in, which was, where did he find himself?

How many of these did he violate on the bottom? Did he say, I was hungry, I was in the deep, so I'm drowning in the water for two or three days. Not a lot of safety there, I don't know about you, but it doesn't feel safe to me. He's hungry. He didn't have clothes.

And guess what he said? He's fine. He's satisfied. He's happy. He's content. I find myself content. The bottom of this Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, as the world defines it, was not met. Yet he said, I am not that way. When we look at the way of God, needs are an important thing to talk about. Because needs can get us into trouble. Needs can get us into trouble. Needs are a spiritual matter. What does that mean? It means God created them. God created us to have needs. God created you to have and want connected relationships. God created you to want and to need things from other...

Otherwise, you would be a robot. I don't know about you, but it's like if you had nothing that you needed, you're all self-sufficient, you just woke up and put in a dime and you go through the day and, hello, how are you? I am great. Thank you. I am fine. Thank you. You know, this is what we would be. But God put needs into us.

Needs to have a bigger vision. What does he do? He gives us a purpose. He helps us see the universe. Needs to want to have a connected relationship. Unfortunately, with our relationships on this earth, those needs a lot of times get smoldered and stuffed and messed up, not met properly, or met in a wrong way.

And then the world comes in and says, you know, I know you have this kind of deep need. Let me feel that. I know there's pain here because that need is not getting met. A lot of addictions start this way. There's a pain. Man, I'm going to numb that. My need isn't getting met. I'm going to numb it. And then I come out of it and I feel bad about that so that I numb that and then I'm just stuck in a cycle.

When you look at it, needs are very important as a Christian to know are legitimately real that God has created inside of us. They're a spiritual matter for us to be drawn to Him, to want a relationship. When you feel insecure in those things, to find security. When you feel afraid to find strength, to have a relationship, to look to the future, these are things that God has created as needs and there's a proper way to have those needs met. This right here talks about that. I don't know if you read the Bible in a different way, but think about it in the context of needs.

Matthew 5 says, blessed are those who hunger and thirst. What does that sound like? You know, when you see that in the Bible, that's an emotional statement. That's a statement of needs and emotion and you know, hunger and thirst means it's not an intellectual statement. Hungering and thirsting is not saying, well, guess what? I have not had my sufficient protein count as of two hours ago, so I feel like I need to imbibe with some calories.

It's hungering and thirsting says, man, I desire, I'm starving for something. If you think about that concept, that's would describe needs sometimes. Voracious, ravenous needs. The part that God says that's different in the world says is that those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be filled. Will be filled. When it comes to your needs, there's a way to approach them. The wrong way is to say they're not legitimate, don't have them, quit crying, don't...

the right way is to hunger and thirst for righteousness. Then you will be filled. These statements are statements of needs, talking about needs. Isaiah 55. Ho, everyone who thirst, here we go again. I'm thirsty. Come to the waters, you have no money. Come buy and eat. Yes, come buy wine and milk without money, without price. Why do you spend money for what is not bread?

And your wages for what does not satisfy? The world is going to keep you in a cycle with your needs to try to fill them, little bit by little bit in a way that never satisfies. What does it say before? If you hunger and thirst for righteousness, you will be filled. If you go the treadmill of the world and try to get those things satisfied, temporarily, some things will be nice, some things will work, but you'll be back for more and more and more and never satisfied.

Never satisfied. Why are you buying bread that doesn't satisfy? Why are you investing your money and your effort and your time into something when you should be hungering and thirsting for righteousness? Do you know taking your needs to God will help you to get them met? Does that say that you never can have them met by humans? No. If you take them to God and seek his righteousness, he will fill them.

I don't know about you. Have you ever been just so full of angst, so churned up, and you try to work through that in so many ways. You go run, you go lift some weights, you go punch a punching bag, whatever it is you do. You do your thing, and it doesn't really help. Or maybe you're exhausted. But have you ever stopped in the middle of all of that and just gotten on your knees and talked to God about it and said, this is giving me angst, and I bring it to you, and what happens?

What happens to you? I don't know about you, but there is a peace. There is a, okay, wait, I think I can handle this now. There is a taking it to God first. Is it always just that? No. Sometimes, man, I don't know about you. I've had really hard weeks, a couple of times, where you get to the end of the week and just things are piled up and piled up, and you're just like, can anything be good and positive what's going on at all?

Or does everything have to be this big pile of mess? And I pray to God and talk to Him about it. The next thing you know, a couple hours later, somebody says, hey, man, I listened to the sermon, and I was going through this and that, and all of a sudden, you're like, oh, wow, there's a nice word from somebody. Or somebody stops by and says, man, I haven't caught up with you. It's been forever. And you get together, and all of a sudden, people are involved with that. And your needs are, you're not expecting it from everybody.

When we expect everybody to meet our needs, we lash out at people. But if we take it to God, God can help and give answers with words, Him directly, with other people, with things that you could not have figured out yourself. Have you experienced that yourself, ever? When you do that, it's a difference. There's a difference. When you take it to God, what do you think the Psalms are in the Bible? Read David.

What did he do? How many things was he going through? These people are gnashing under their teeth. This guy's political. I can't believe I got backstabbed. This happened. That happened. He would pray, you know, for a long time about those needs. Take it to God, and God would help. It's really important to understand needs are legitimate. God put them there for us. How do we resolve them is important. And taking them to God is the way to do that.

Interesting Scripture in Proverbs. Interesting Scripture in Proverbs 27-7. A satisfied soul loaves the honeycomb, but to a hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet. It's kind of a test. You ever been all stirred up in angst and you go open the freezer and like, I need some ice cream. I need some ice cream. And you open the ice cream and you're like, oh, so good. And then half the container later you're like, oh, so bad. And then you're you're churned up about it. And then that honey you just want and then you're like, oh, that didn't really do it.

Oh, this cookie. Look at that cookie. And you take a cookie and you eat the cookie and then after 10 cookies you're like, oh! Next thing you know you're 5 pounds heavier and you hate yourself. Right? This is what this is talking about. Let me tell you. When it says that, a satisfied, if you're at peace in your needs and you're taking him to God, there's a peace that you'll calm down with. That that desire and that need to take him to eat that ice cream in the freezer isn't there.

But when your soul, again, this is talking about needs. It's talking about emotions, the spirit, the internal. But if your soul's hungry, it's not satisfied, not taking your needs to God, every bitter thing's gonna feel like a morsel. Every bad thing in life is gonna be a tasty treat to you. You're gonna, if you have a nickname soon, a bitter Bob or a bitter Betty. Right? Every bitter thing to you is like a little treat and you just feast on them and eat them and grind other people and ugh, ugh.

Do you know what the heart of that, again, is needs. Take them to God. Those things get resolved. Like that. God will help resolve those things. This is a great scripture. This is a great test. If you're stirred up, if you're at peace, even that ice cream will be like, you know, I don't need that. I'm actually good. Good. I'm calm. I'm good. I really don't feel like I want that. It just makes me feel bad to eat that. But if you're all stirred up and churned, every bitter thing in life is gonna become like a tasty morsel. It's a really good litmus test. A really good litmus test. Okay, last thing on this.

To understand, how do we counter, how do we counter these pulls and temptations? Now, a lot of subjects I'm covering here, I feel like some of these are nuances that maybe we haven't talked about before, so I'd love to just kind of bring some of these in. This is an important one. 1 Corinthians 15, 19 says, if in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of men and most pitiable.

Another translation says, we're the most miserable people. If you're giving up things that you know and the only reason you're doing it is just, hey, it's just for this life, we're the men most miserable. Why is that? There's gonna be a lot of things in this world that are fun, good, that are big draws that might be temporarily fun. And you have to have in your mind that there's a reason, too, why you are making the choice you're making and you're giving it up. If it's just, hey, I'm in this life, I've got Christ and we're all gonna be good and I have to give all these things up, we're miserable.

That's a miserable place to be. You have to see a bigger picture. You have to see a bigger view of things. Hebrews 12, 16, Esau is an example, did not see that. He didn't have the bigger view. It says, lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau who for one morsel of food, one morsel of food, sold his birth rate, his birth rate, all the things he could inherit, his future.

For you know that afterwards when he wanted to inherit the blessing he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently to his peers. Esau a single bowl of beans, a single bowl of beans. He was in the moment, the immediacy, and that's all he could think of. Gave up what? His future. Now, for you and I, what is your bowl of beans? Ask yourself what your bowl of beans is. What's in front of you that's so strong to you, so temptingly tasty, so something that you have to have, that you would be willing to give up what?

Your birth rate. Your future. And when you see, one day God will open up and say, here's sorry, like I don't know you, there's going to be weeping and gnashing of teeth, just like Esau, because you realize what you gave up. So reverse that today. Realize that keep your eyes on what you're going to have, where you're going, and why you're doing this. We're not supposed to just be miserable people. We're supposed to be children of God and putting away sin, but we have our eyes fixed on where we're going.

And there's the end that's inside of it. Because a couple scriptures say, 1 Corinthians 2, 9 says, I has not seen nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.

We still don't know all the things. We don't know all the things, but it's going to be incredible. It's going to be incredible what He has created. 1 John 3, 2 says, beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be. But we know that when He is revealed, we should be like Him. For we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies Himself just as He is pure. Resisting against the sin, the temptations that come, the things that are held out to you.

If you don't have the picture of the big picture in mind, then you'll cave into them. But if you see it and you know this and you have this hope, you will purify what? Your heart. You remember? Not just put away, I'm doing it with my hand, but I know what's in my heart and what pulls on me. And while I want that again, let me work on that. Let me work on that. When you have that hope, you purify yourself.

You purify yourself. So, in summary, this is the second part of the series. We'll go through the final part next week. And very appropriate to, on Thanksgiving, go through the third trunk of what the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil talks about.

But this is Satan's second part of that. The threefold thing that he uses on people. Lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, pride of life, lust of the flesh was used in Genesis. It's talked about in the world. Examples are given. Christ was tempted. It's very important for you and I to understand that this and you will be enticed differently than a person next to you for what's inside your heart.

And that that is the very heart that we have to deal with that God is interested in knowing. And he'll test to say, hey, where are you with that? I'm going to take you through this. I want to know where your heart is with this. While Satan will continue to try to knock your legs out and get you to sin so that you die.

But God wants us to live. God wants us to resist that. God wants us to have the vision of the future so that we can put those sins away. And God gave us needs. God gave us those things for a reason. To have a relationship with him.

To be able to see the future. To be able to have connections with each other. All of those things are spiritual matters. And for us to think about being tempted, we also need to make sure that we are thinking about the needs that we have and fulfilling them in the right way.

Or taking them to God so he can help fulfill them in the right way. Is the proper way to say it. So these things are all very important for resisting. But it's very important to understand that this is one of the ways that Satan uses. Very powerful one. Very important one. Pride of life, lust of the flesh, and then next week we'll talk about the lust of the eyes.