We Can Have Victory Over Temptation

[0:00] Well, the pastor said I would go a long time, so I hope you're all comfortable, because I plan on going like two hours, so you better be ready. Okay, so today I've decided to preach on temptation, something that God called to my heart to talk about, and I felt like I could say a lot about it.

[0:22] So I'm going to go over a few examples of its occurrences in common Bible stories, and then relate those stories to real-world issues today. First, I'll read the verses of 1 John 2, 15-17, which state, Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them.

[0:45] For everything in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, comes not from the Father, but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.

[0:58] Mainly, I'll be reaching on those verses today, focusing on different temptations and sins that can occur in our daily lives, and that occur from the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, that we may struggle with in our lives today.

[1:15] My first point is going to come from the story of Adam and Eve and the forbidden fruit. Please turn with me to Genesis 3, where I'll read Genesis 3, 1-7. Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.

[1:43] He said to the woman, Did God actually say, You shall not eat of any tree in the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden. But God said, You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden.

[1:56] Neither shall you touch it, lest you die. But the serpent said to the woman, You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

[2:07] So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.

[2:18] And she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves loincloths.

[2:29] This is the classic story of the fall of the human race. Through Adam and Eve, eating the one tree of the garden, they were told not to. This temptation, I believe, is based on the lust of the eyes from 1 John 2.

[2:44] As stated in verse 6, So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.

[2:59] It's explicitly pointed out here that Eve saw that the fruit was good for eating, and her eyes made her want it. So, after they recognized it as something good to eat, Satan, disguised as the serpent, tempted Eve to eat the fruit, even though she had been told not to.

[3:21] This temptation is a common one in everyone's life today. Our human nature wants us to do something, just because we were told not to do it. In our lives today, it may happen consistently, when we see something that we may want, and then need to have it, no matter the circumstances.

[3:43] So, an issue in the world today that relates to this would be drugs and alcohol. So, one thing in the world today that we're told by either teachers, parents, doctors, most people in our lives, that they're not good for our body, because they aren't.

[4:05] But, sometimes in life, people will still try them. And countless people in the world today have a drug and alcohol addiction that they struggle with.

[4:19] So, addiction's really just a larger form of temptation. It happens once. You do it once, and then your body needs to do it again, and again, and again.

[4:33] That's what addiction turns into. So, once you take that first drink, and then it continues to be something that your life starts to rely on. Drugs and alcohol may start as a lust of the eyes, because you see it, and you want it.

[4:48] But then, it will turn into a lust of the flesh, because your body says that you need it to operate, and you need it to run through your daily life. Ezekiel 14, 1 through 6, shows us exactly how things like drugs and alcohol, drugs or alcohol, and addictions can take over our lives.

[5:07] I didn't have this verse ready. So, So, I'm going to interest you 10 times. You Wow.

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[5:32] He's less thanー than math is五 in his own. Then certain of the elders of Israel came to me and sat before me, and the word of the Lord came to me.

[5:52] Son of man, these men have taken their idols into their hearts and set the stumbling block of their iniquity before their faces. Should I indeed let myself be consulted by them? Therefore speak to them and say to them, Thus say the Lord God.

[6:06] Any one of the house of Israel who takes his idols into his heart and sets the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face, and yet comes to the prophet, I the Lord will answer him as he comes with the multitude of his idols.

[6:20] That I may lay hold of the hearts of the house of Israel who are all estranged from me through their idols. Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God, Repent and turn away from your idols, and turn away your faces from all your abominations.

[6:36] Verse 6 especially hits hard on this point, stating that we need to turn from our idols and renounce all of our detestable practices. Addiction is one of those things in life that can easily turn into a detestable practice in our lives if we continue doing it, and something that we have to try and stop to turn from if it were ever something we struggled with in our lives.

[7:00] Jeremiah 17.9 follows up on this point, stating that, The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick. Who can understand it? Proverbs 4.23 coincides well with this verse, stating, Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.

[7:21] These verses really help prove the point that it is our desires of the heart that causes us to be deceitful, and that is where temptation is truly rooted. We need to keep our heart guarded vigilantly, or else Satan will come and tempt us, which will then make us fall into temptation due to our human nature and deceitful heart.

[7:39] Drugs and alcohol are more of an extreme example of temptation, temptation, but the temptation of doing something that we shouldn't do could be a more common issue in all of our daily lives. For example, say we're told by a teacher or a parent to not do something in our lives, but then we do it just because we want to.

[8:00] This is something that we need to not do, first of all, because we can't just go around living in the world today with just doing things that we were not supposed to do.

[8:12] These are, of course, less extreme examples than drugs and alcohol, but still something that we need to not do in our lives. So, temptation, especially the lust of the eyes, is something that we need to learn to fight and triumph over, because it's something that we need to make it, we need to make it so it won't happen in our lives.

[8:36] We need to stop it in our lives before it becomes a problem, and not let it turn into an addiction. The second example that I'm going to focus on today uses the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes in another biblical figure's lives, that being King David's.

[8:56] Please turn with me to 2 Samuel 11, where I'll read the whole chapter. In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab and his servants with him and all Israel, and they ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabba, but David remained at Jerusalem.

[9:24] It happened, late one afternoon, when David arose from his couch and was walking on the roof of the king's house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful. And David sent and inquired about the woman.

[9:37] And one said, Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite? So David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him, and he lay with her.

[9:48] Then she returned to her house. And the woman conceived, and she sent and told David, I am pregnant. So David sent word to Joab, Send me Uriah the Hittite. And Joab sent Uriah to David.

[10:01] When Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab was doing, and how the people were doing, and how the war was going. Then David said to Uriah, Go down to your house and wash your feet. And Uriah went out of the king's house, and there followed him a present from the king.

[10:15] But Uriah slept at the door of the king's house with all the servants of his lord, and did not go down to his house. When they told David, Uriah did not go down to his house. David said to Uriah, Have you not come from a journey?

[10:28] Why did you not go down to your house? Uriah said to David, The ark and Israel and Judah dwell in booths, and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are camping in the open field.

[10:40] Shall I then go to my house to eat and drink and to lie with my wife? As you live and as your soul lives, I will not do this thing. Then David said to Uriah, Remain here today also, and tomorrow I will send you back.

[10:55] So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. And David invited him, and he ate in his presence and drank, so that he made him drunk. And in the evening he went out to lie on his couch with the servants of his lord, but he did not go down to his house.

[11:09] In the morning, David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah. In the letter he wrote, Set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting, and then draw back from him, that he may be struck down and die.

[11:21] And as Joab was besieging the city, he assigned Uriah to the place where he knew there were valiant men. In the minute of the city, it came out and fought with Joab, and some of the servants of David among the people fell.

[11:32] Uriah the Hittite also died. Then Jacob sent and told David all the news about the fighting. And he instructed the messenger, When you have finished telling all the news about the fighting to the king, then if the king's anger rises, and he says to you, Why did you go so near the city to fight?

[11:50] Did you not know that they would shoot from the wall? Who killed Abimelech, the son of Jerubashef? Did not a woman cast upper millstone on him from the wall, so that he died at the beds? Why did you go so near the wall?

[12:02] Then you shall say, Your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also. So the messenger went and came, and told David all that Joab had said him to tell. The messenger said to David, The men gained an advantage over us, and came out against us in the field.

[12:16] But we drove them back to the entrance of the gate. Then the archers shot at your servants from the wall. Some of the king's servants are dead, and your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also. David said to the messenger, Thus shall you say to Joab, Do not let this matter displease you, for the sword devours now one, and now another.

[12:35] Strengthen your attack against the city, and overthrow it, and encourage him. When the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah, her husband, had died, she lamented over her husband.

[12:46] And when the mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife, and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord. This is a story that most of us have probably heard in our lives, and is a prime example of a godly person falling into temptation, and sinning hugely because of it.

[13:11] In this example, David sees Bathsheba while she is bathing, and notices that she is beautiful. This is his first strike of temptation in this occurrence, as he states to himself that this woman is beautiful, and now wants to get to know her, or have her.

[13:25] This is a prime example of David's human nature, and lust of the eyes, as he saw Bathsheba baby, and wanted her. Then, after he figures out who her husband is, he starts his true plot.

[13:41] He starts his true plot, he starts his true path of temptation, starting with the second strike, which is strategically planning a ploy for Uriah's death, and cover-up of his sin.

[13:53] After David's lust of the eyes, he falls into the rut of the lust of the flesh, and then ends up committing sexual adultery by laying down with Uriah's wife, Bathsheba, and making her pregnant.

[14:12] David struggles and falls to two of the three main points in 1 John 2, 15-17, falling for the lust of the eyes, after he sees Bathsheba bathing, and wanting to marry her, and the lust of the flesh, for the physical urge to commit sexual immorality.

[14:28] After trying to convince Uriah to go back to his home, and failing, he ends up just sending Uriah to the battlefield to die, to make it seem like he was sadly lost in the battle. David did this to try and cover up for his sin, so he could take Bathsheba as his own wife.

[14:45] After Uriah's death, David then takes Bathsheba to be his queen, after sending her husband into death on the battlefield. This is the true urge and lust of the flesh that gets David in trouble in this situation.

[14:58] The fact that he went all the way to have his own soldier carry his own death note into battle, just to take his wife for his own, is one of David's true sins in this situation.

[15:15] Lust is one of the forms of temptation that some people may consider less a struggle today than it was in those times, but it truly never ends. Something in life today that is a more extreme example of lust in all of our lives, or some of our lives, is pornography.

[15:34] Pornography is a temptation that a lot of people struggle with in the world today. Sadly, 10% of adults today in the U.S. admit to having addictions related to pornography, or visiting other sites related to it.

[15:47] But it's not just a worldly struggle in the world today, it is also a struggle with people inside the church, mostly young men. According to Mission Frontiers, 68% of church-going men watch pornography at least month to month, which is sadly a very high percentage of church-going people.

[16:05] The percentage then rises to 76%, when talking about 18 to 24-year-olds, which is more than three-quarters of the young men in the church struggling with a pornography addiction.

[16:16] Pornography is one of the largest lust-of-the-flesh temptations that we'll see in our lives today. It could be something that any one person is going to struggle with sometime in their life.

[16:32] It is, I believe it's as bad as drugs and alcohol in people's lives, and turns into addiction, an addiction that may take away from how people feel and how they act in their daily lives.

[16:43] Satan has learned to use temptation as a trick in our lives, with something that starts small, but then grows more as we do it, more and more, to struggle with it, and to turn it into a huge temptation and addiction issue.

[16:57] A great verse on this issue is stated in Proverbs 7, 25-26, where Solomon is talking about adultery and adulteresses, and states, These verses make a great point on temptation.

[17:18] If you turn your heart aside to a sin once in your life, then you will get laid low and possibly struggle with this sin for the rest of your life. This is what usually happens with addictions in life, and it happens that someone does one action once, and then it leads to them struggling with the temptation for most, if not the rest of their life, unless they ask God to help them with their struggles and forgive them for this temptation that they struggle with.

[17:43] To continue with my points on addiction and how it starts out as a small issue and then turns into something larger, I want to play a song that I really love. It paints the perfect picture of what happens with addiction when you start, and it doesn't seem like that much of an issue, but it turns into something way larger.

[17:59] As someone who really likes music, as you see, I play the trumpet every Sunday, music is something that really helps me in life, whether it be a godly tune to help me with my sins and struggles, or just a song to make me feel better and get up.

[18:23] So I'm going to play this song now. It paints a perfect picture of how addiction can play in our lives. Thank you. Be careful, little eyes, what you see.

[19:18] It's the second glance that ties your hands as darkness pulls the strings. Be careful, little feet, where you go.

[19:30] For it's the little feet behind you that are sure to follow. It's a slow fade When you give yourself away When you give yourself away When you give yourself away When black and white turn to gray And thoughts invade Choices are made A price will be paid When you give yourself away People never crumble in a day It's a slow fade It's a slow fade It's a slow fade Be careful, little ears, what you hear When flattery leads to compromise

[20:32] The end is always near Be careful, little lips, what you say Be careful, little lips, what you say For empty words and promises Lead broken hearts astray It's a slow fade It's a slow fade When you give yourself away It's a slow fade When black and white turn to gray And thoughts invade Choices are made Choices are made A price will be paid When you give yourself away When you give yourself away People never crumble in a day The chariot from your mind to your hands Is shorter than you're thinking Be careful if you think you stand

[21:34] You just might be sinking It might be sinking It's a slow fade It's a slow fade It's a slow fade When you give yourself away It's a slow fade When black and white turn to gray And thoughts invade And it's a slow fade And it's a slow fade When you give yourself away It's a slow fade When black and white turn to gray And thoughts invade Choices are made A price will be paid When you give yourself away We'll be right back.

[22:51] For the Father up above is looking down in love. Oh, be careful, it lies what you see.

[23:14] Two specific lyrics in this song drew the song to my attention with the issue of addiction. It was the line that stated, people never crumble in a day, and directly following it, it's a slow fade.

[23:28] These two lines paint the perfect picture of what happens within any addiction. A person becomes addicted to it and doesn't believe it will be an issue the first day they try it. But then they begin to crumble in later days of life to the same issue.

[23:42] This is because Satan has a strategic approach of where it comes to addiction and the sin of it. He makes you believe that it isn't a problem. He makes you believe that it isn't a problem.

[23:57] And as the beginning, but then you slowly fade into it becoming a larger and much larger problem. 1 Timothy 6.9 provides a great point in reference to this song, stating, But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.

[24:17] This is what happens within addiction. People fall into one trap. Instead of trying to escape, they slowly sink deeper into the trap and end up following temptation more and more consistently, leading to ruin and destruction.

[24:33] It's all about desire. As stated here, if you desire something, like in this instance, being rich, then your human nature is going to want it, and you will do desperate things to get it.

[24:44] This song also makes the point to say that choices are made in this slow fate of sin. And this is the real reason that addiction and temptation are one of the sins that lots of people struggle with.

[24:56] And that is because their human nature has to make choices a lot of the times. They end up choosing the wrong one due to them being humans and the devil's influence to make them continuously fade into addiction.

[25:07] To continue on, it is stated in James 1, 13-15, Let no one say when he is tempted, I am being tempted by God. For God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.

[25:21] But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin. And sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death.

[25:32] These verses are great verses on the topic of temptation. The first part states directly how when temptation hits any or all of us in all forms, that temptation is not from God.

[25:43] This means that if God isn't ever going to tempt us, then temptation will only ever come from the devil and our own human nature. That is shown in the later statements in James 1, 15, about how when a person is enticed by their own desire, it grows and grows until it gives birth to sin, which will then grow and lead to death.

[26:02] This is stated again by Paul in the book of Romans, in Romans 6, 23, when he says, For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.

[26:14] This passage as well, as the one in James, states that sin will always lead to death. But God will never lead to death, but eternal life.

[26:27] And since temptation and desire leads to sin, which then leads to death, we know that if temptation is a struggle in any or all of our lives, we should ask God for help.

[26:40] In James 4, 1, James states again, What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from the desires that battle within you? In this verse, James talks about what causes fights and quarrels throughout the church, and that inner desires and temptation are always a probable cause.

[26:58] So that is another reason that we should focus on temptations in our lives, this time because it is shown to lead to quarrels and fights in the church when it becomes a larger sin than someone's life. Now, you may all be thinking that I've just stood up here and told you all about temptation, and how hard it is to escape from, how hard it is to escape from, as well as the consistent struggle with it in godly biblical figures' lives, and our lives today.

[27:25] And you'd be correct. That is what I have done so far. But now I'm going to tell you about the one person who conquered, one of the people who conquered temptation in the Bible like no one else could, and that person being no other than our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

[27:41] If you would turn with me to Matthew 4, verses 1 through 11, where we'll read on Jesus' temptation. Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

[28:03] And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread. But he answered, It is written, Man shall not live by bread of bread.

[28:17] Sorry. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, He will command his angels concerning you, and on their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.

[28:39] Jesus said to him, Again, it is written, You shall not put the Lord your God to the test. Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.

[28:51] And he said to him, All these I will give you, if you fall down and worship me. Then Jesus said to him, Be gone, Satan, for it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.

[29:04] Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came, and were ministering to him. Within these verses, Jesus gets tempted by the devil three different times, over three different temptations.

[29:17] One of these that I would categorize under the lust of the flesh, like David and Meshiva, and one is the lust of the eyes, like in the instance of Adam and Eve. The first two existences, Satan tries to tempt Jesus into turning stones into bread, because he has not eaten for 40 days.

[29:34] This was a play on Jesus' human inequities, such as hunger. However, Jesus does not fall for Satan's trick, and overcomes his human need for food, with a scripture, quote, that man shall not live by bread alone.

[29:49] In the second instance, Satan tries to tempt Jesus into jumping off the pinnacle of the temple, and quotes scripture on how God will save him. However, Jesus again responds with scripture, and doesn't fall for temptation, saying that it is written, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test.

[30:05] The last temptation, I consider more the lust of the eyes, as Satan is trying to tempt Jesus' pride, and once, pride and wants, by trying to make him worship him for all the kingdoms of the world, that he can see in front of him.

[30:19] However, Jesus again conquers the devil in this scenario, with another scripture passage. So, Jesus shows us all, right here, how to help and conquer the temptations, or addictions, that we struggle with in our lives.

[30:33] The first step that we need to take, is reading the Bible. Biblical knowledge, is something that we all need to have, and use in our lives. Whether it be, thinking of a certain verse, to help counteract the temptation that we may have, or just knowing the Bible, to be able to do other things with it, like share the gospel, or other things.

[30:52] Biblical knowledge is something that we all need to have in our lives, and something that we should focus on, whether it be a daily Bible reading, or more than once. The second thing that we need to do, is ask God for help with our temptations, and struggles.

[31:08] Temptation is not an easy issue, especially if it turns into an addiction in our lives. All humans struggle with temptation, once or more than once, in their lives today.

[31:21] Even those that have been saved by Jesus Christ. If temptation is something that we struggle with, in our daily lives, then we need to ask God for help, as we won't be able to do it alone. However, that does not mean that we can just ask God for help, and then put in no effort ourselves.

[31:37] If you want to change something about yourself, and stop a certain sin in your life, God can help you along the path, but you need to walk it yourself first. As stated in 1 Corinthians 10.13, no temptation is not common to man.

[31:51] God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability. But with the temptation, he will also provide a way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. This verse cites back to Jesus' temptation.

[32:06] Even though in Matthew 4, we only see three instances of Jesus being tempted. Throughout Jesus' life, he was tempted with most every worldly sin in our lives, that we will see today.

[32:19] But he never stumbled. Jesus always didn't fall to sin, and lived a godly life. This verse of 1 Corinthians 10.13, also directly shows that God will not tempt us beyond what we can't handle, that he will help us to provide a way out of this temptation.

[32:43] However, we have to be able to endure the temptation, and be open to that way of escape, than just sitting back, and trying to have God cure our temptation and sin, all by himself. Ending out my sermon today, I have a couple more verses to share on the matter of temptation.

[33:02] First, the verse of 2 Peter 4.9a, which states, Then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials. The first half of this verse truly shows fully on how we need to be saved from temptation.

[33:14] We can't fully pull ourselves from the, we can't fully pull yourself or ourselves from the slow faith that we are trapped in, or the paths that we walk down, without God's help.

[33:26] This is why you have to be willing to let God into your life, and help you out with these issues that you may struggle with, instead of just sticking it out, and thinking that you will conquer it eventually.

[33:37] The Lord is the person in our lives, that knows how to rescue us from trials and temptations. It is not our human nature that knows this, or the devil that knows this. It is the Lord that will help us conquer temptation.

[33:50] In the end, it all comes back to Jesus' statement in Matthew 26.41. Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation, for the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.

[34:03] This is what we need to do to beat temptation. We need to pray and watch ourselves to not enter into it. Even though our flesh wants to, wants to enter into temptation, our spirit has to be strong, and willing to fight and beat any temptation that comes to us.

[34:21] Thank you.