The Temptation of Jesus
Tom Shrader walks through the three temptations of Jesus in the wilderness, comparing Satan's approach with Him to the temptation of Adam and Eve in Genesis 3. He shows that Satan consistently attacks through the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, and that Jesus overcame each assault by quoting Scripture. The teaching closes with practical steps for resisting temptation, including knowing your enemy, understanding that temptation itself is not sin, and taking decisive action to flee dangerous situations.
“You can never say the devil made me do it. You can never say I didn't have enough strength. There's no temptation so strong that you cannot resist it.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: A Study Of The Life Of Jesus Christ (2003/2004)
Recorded: 2004 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 59 min
Themes: temptation, spiritual warfare, resisting sin, scripture memory, wilderness, overcoming evil, the enemy, fleeing temptation, struggling with temptation, feeling spiritually attacked, new believer, young adult, someone questioning god's provision, person in spiritual dry season, anyone facing repeated sin patterns, seeker wanting to understand jesus
Scripture: Matthew 4:1-11, Mark 1:12-13, Luke 4:1-13, Philippians 2:7, Isaiah 14:13-14, Psalm 119:11, Deuteronomy 8:3, Deuteronomy 6:16, Psalm 91, John 4:34, John 6:38, Genesis 3:1-13, 1 Corinthians 10:13, 1 John 2:15-16, 1 Timothy 6:11
Theological Themes: christology, hamartiology, the nature of sin, biblical typology, adam and christ, satanology, lust of the flesh, the word of god as weapon
Full Transcript
Introduction: The Temptation of Jesus
We continue today our study in the life of Jesus Christ. This is already our fifteenth lesson in this series. Today we look at the temptation of Jesus, recorded by Matthew, Mark, and Luke — not in John's Gospel. So these are the three references you will need for the day: Matthew 4:1–11, Mark 1:12–13, and Luke 4:1–13. Let me remind you again, on most Sundays, by the time you are leaving home to come to this service, all of the notes are on the website, so you can download those and have anything that is on the slide in front of you.
By way of introduction, let me give you the three specific temptations that Jesus faces. The first is to distrust the Father's promise to provide and care for Him. The second is to presume on the Father's protection. The third is to deny the Father and follow Satan. What I want to do today is look at the background leading up to this event, examine these three temptations, then go back into Genesis chapter three to see how Satan tempted Adam and Eve, and finally offer a practical application. This is one you are going to be able to use before you get to the exit sign today. We are going to talk about temptation, resisting temptation, and overcoming temptation.
The Connection Between Baptism and Temptation
Here is what I am doing today: I am taking these three Gospel writers and blending them together to give us a more complete flow. If you want to follow one account all the way through, take Matthew's, as that would be the one to follow. Luke 4:1 and Mark 1:12 tell us that Jesus returned from the Jordan full of the Holy Spirit, and immediately the Spirit — the Holy Spirit — drove Him. Some translations will say impelled, compelled, or led Him into the wilderness. Both Mark and Luke use connecting words: Luke uses "then," Mark uses "immediately."
The event we are looking at — the temptation of Jesus in the desert — cannot be separated from what we looked at last week, the baptism of Jesus. The baptism of Jesus and the temptation of Jesus are the final preparations for Jesus' public ministry. Jesus is returning from the Jordan, filled with the Holy Spirit, and it is the Spirit who leads Him, who compels Him to the wilderness. Remember that this temptation is all part of God's perfect plan, and especially God's perfect redemptive plan.
The Humanity of Christ
We need to look carefully at the humanity of Jesus. We have a small group that meets at our house, and we are currently working through a study on the humanity of Christ. Some of the questions seem straightforward — when Jesus was tired, He slept; when He was hungry, He ate; when His heart was broken, He cried. He is fully man and fully God. Philippians 2:7 says Jesus emptied Himself and took the form of a bondservant. He emptied Himself — make sure you understand this — not of His deity, but of His glory.
He set aside, temporarily, that face-to-face relationship with the Father. He submitted perfectly in perfect obedience to the Father. He set aside some of those divine attributes and took on the limitations of man. He is fully God and fully man — how does that come together? I do not know that I can adequately explain that to you, but I know that it is true. For years I thought, Jesus is on the cross with nails in Him and everything else, but He is God, so how much can it really hurt? But in His humanity it is agony. His humanity is suffering physically; His deity is suffering the punishment of sin.
Driven Into the Wilderness
He is driven into the wilderness. One author says that nowhere in Palestine could Jesus have been more isolated or in less comfort. It is a barren, desolate area. He is driven there to be tempted or tested. Now, when we hear the word "tempted" in English, we immediately think of something evil happening to us. But in the Hebrew and the Greek, the word can mean either tempted toward evil or tested and proven. God will test us; Satan will tempt us. Those are important distinctions.
Mark 1:13 tells us He is in the wilderness forty days being tempted by Satan. In my mind, I had always pictured it this way: Jesus goes into the wilderness, He is there forty days, and then finally, after forty days, Satan comes and unloads these three great temptations on Him. But that is not what Mark and Matthew say. Mark and Matthew say that for forty days He is being tempted. It may be that these temptations are getting progressively more difficult and intense, and that Satan is thinking that
The Setting: Vulnerable in the Wilderness
Jesus is in the wilderness. He hasn't eaten anything for 40 days, and in perhaps one of the great understatements of all time, Luke says He's hungry. He's in a physically weakened condition. When I'm tired, when I'm sick, when I'm hungry, that seems to be when I'm most vulnerable. It seems to me there are two times in life when we're very vulnerable. One is when everything's going well — there's a temptation to say, "Bring it on, I can handle anything," and all of a sudden we move into self-confidence, maybe even conceit and cockiness. The other is when we're so tired, so whipped, so beat, that we feel we can't do anything.
There's a story called "The Devil's Garage Sale." The devil decided to have a garage sale, and taking out his finest tools of deception and death, he priced and placed each one in the driveway. There was hatred, envy, and jealousy all marked for sale. There was deceit, and lust, and lying, and pride, each with their appropriate price tags. But set off by itself, totally removed from the other instruments, was an unassuming, plain-looking tool — quite worn, in fact the most worn of all the tools, yet it carried the highest price tag.
A customer sauntered up and began browsing through the tools. He picked this tool up, looked it over, and casually asked the devil, "What's the name of this tool?" With a shrewd sneer, the devil boldly replied, "Ah, my favorite tool — I know it well. It's the tool called discouragement." The customer asked whether the high price tag was negotiable. "No, absolutely not," the devil answered. "That is the tool more powerful than any other. When I use the tool of discouragement on a person's heart, I can pry that heart open and then use all my other tools. It's the key tool, my most strategic tool, and therefore comes at a very high price."
Jesus is in the wilderness. He's hungry. He's alone in a barren wasteland. He's tired, He's fatigued, maybe discouraged. That is when you are most vulnerable to Satan.
Fourteen Names of Satan
Let me give you fourteen names of Satan, each carrying an underlying implication about his wicked character or his activities. Adversary. Devil — slanderer. Lucifer — the bright shining one. Beelzebub — the lord of filth. Evil one — intrinsically wicked. Tempter — enticing. Prince of the world — ruler of worldly influences. Father of all lies. The great deceiver. God of this age — controlling the world system. The prince of the power of the air — ruler over the fallen angels. The accuser of the brethren — opposing believers. The great dragon — destructive beast. And a roaring lion — a great destroyer.
Do you see how multi-faceted Satan is? He will come at you in so many different ways.
The Pride That Made Lucifer the Devil
Satan was indeed an angel — Lucifer — but he fell. It was through one characteristic that Lucifer became the devil, and that characteristic was pride. God is speaking to Lucifer in Isaiah 14, verses 13 and 14, and notice the "I wills" that appear: "Because you said in your heart, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will make myself like the Most High" — because you were swept away in your own ways and your own desires, because you were living for yourself and not for anything or anyone else, and because you exalted yourself above everything, because of that, you will be banished.
I'll share something with you. When I was an unbeliever, when I was not a Christian, I used to think about my funeral a lot. I thought, if this doesn't have "I will" written all over it — I don't want to be in a casket. I want you to carry me in seated, put me on the platform, do whatever it is you're going to do, and then as you carry me out, I want Frank Sinatra singing "My Way." Don't laugh — you're just as sick as I am, I'm just up here telling the truth. That is a human manifestation of that same spirit right there. That's every lost person: my way, my way, my way — not Your way.
That is one of the great characteristics that distinguishes the Christian life from the pagan life. We're no longer trying to serve ourselves and our whims; we're trying to serve God and His desires. Our agenda is not the driving force any longer — His agenda is. We're no longer concerned first and foremost with building our kingdom, but with building His kingdom.
The First Temptation: Stones into Bread
Here is the backdrop. The temptation immediately follows Jesus' baptism. The Spirit orchestrates all of this. The area is desolate, barren, and lonely, and Jesus has not eaten for 40 days. Against that backdrop, Matthew chapter 4, verse 3: "Then the tempter approached Him." We have no physical description of Satan here at all. He says, "If you are the Son of God" — and this is often better translated "since." Satan is not doubting that Jesus is the Son of God. He is saying, "Since you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread."
The argument is this: You're hungry. You haven't eaten for 40 days. You're the Son of God — You can do anything. Just say, "Be bread," and there is bread. On the surface that almost appears to be somewhat harmless, maybe even positive — as though Satan is saying, "Finally, just prove who you really are." But the temptation is this: the Spirit had led Jesus to this point. God had orchestrated these events. God had produced this wilderness season, and the temptation was to step outside what God had ordained and act independently.
The First Temptation: Bread and Trust
The first temptation centered on Jesus' present condition — in this case, His hunger — with the assumption that God would meet that need His way. Satan said, "If you're the Son of God, tell those stones to become bread." In my mind, I fast forward to Jesus hanging on the cross, when they shouted, "If you're the Son of God, come down from that cross. You saved others, but you can't save yourself. You mustn't be who you say you are."
Jesus responds to all three temptations by quoting Scripture. Psalm 119 verse 11 tells us, "Thy word I have treasured in my heart, that I might not sin against thee." So when the temptation comes, Jesus quotes Deuteronomy chapter 8 verse 3: "Man does not live by bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God." He is saying He will not fall prey to the temptation to distrust the Father's promise and His provision. He will resist short-cutting God's process.
John 4 verse 34 records Jesus saying, "My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to accomplish His work." And John 6 verse 38: "I have come down from heaven, not to do My will, but the will of Him who sent Me." So when the first temptation comes — satisfy your needs, turn this stone into bread — He says absolutely not. He is not concerned with living on the physical plane alone.
This is exactly what Jesus would later teach in the Sermon on the Mount. Seek first His kingdom, and all these other things will be taken care of. What am I going to eat? What am I going to wear? Where am I going to live? All of these material things will be taken care of if we seek first His kingdom.
The Second Temptation: Presuming on the Father
Then the devil took Him to the holy city and had Him stand at the pinnacle of the temple — most commentators think somewhere near the southeast corner. Josephus tells us that from that point the building dropped to the ground and then into the Kidron Valley, a drop of about 450 feet, some 45 to 50 stories. The devil takes Him to this high point and says, in effect, you want to quote Scripture? I can quote Scripture too.
"If you're the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, 'He will give His angels orders concerning you, and in their hands they will lift you up, so that you will not strike your foot against the stone.'" He quotes from Psalm 91. Jesus, you believe the Word of God? Here is my suggestion: just throw yourself off. You are the Son of God, and God says His angels will protect you, they will catch you, you will be fine.
Jesus responds, "It is also written," and He quotes Deuteronomy 6:16: "You shall not tempt the Lord your God." Do something spectacular. Throw yourself off. Get in the practice of it, because the crowds are going to love it. You will be able to draw a crowd if you can do something spectacular — perform signs and wonders. But Jesus says no. He will not presume upon the Father to take care of Him in that fashion. The Father is not obligated in that way.
The Third Temptation: Outright Worship of Satan
Finally, the devil has enough. Matthew chapter 4 verse 8 tells us he takes Jesus to a very high mountain and shows Him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. This is something supernatural taking place — Jesus is allowed to see the pyramids in Egypt, Athens, Corinth, Rome, all these grand places. And Satan said to Him, "I will give you all of these if you will just fall down right now and worship me."
All subtlety is gone at this point. The conversation has moved from bread, to throwing yourself off, to this: just worship me. That is what Satan wanted all along. What he has been trying to get Jesus to do is set aside God's agenda and pursue his agenda instead — live his way.
Jesus finally has enough. He says, "Go away, Satan. It is written, 'You must worship the Lord your God, and you must serve only Him.'" Those are the three encounters, the three temptations: distrust the Father's provision and take things into your own hands; presume upon Him; or deny Him entirely, follow Satan, and get relief.
If we step back and listen to the thread running through all three, Satan is essentially saying: if You are the Son of God, why are You suffering like this? You do not need to go through all of this. We can short-circuit that. And that is always how Satan comes. He says, let's short-circuit this thing. You know what you want, and I think we can get it faster, more efficiently, more effectively — if we do it my way, not God's way.
Genesis 3: The Explanation for the World We Live In
Now turn to Genesis chapter 3, because here is that first monumental moment. Genesis chapter 3 is the explanation for why the world is the way it is. Genesis chapter 2 ends with man and his wife both naked and unashamed in the garden. Genesis chapter 4 begins with Cain and Abel, strife and murder. You go from innocence and harmony to total chaos and murder. Without Genesis 3, you would be asking, what in the world happened? This chapter is the explanation.
Why does an athlete making $100 million throw his career away for drugs? Why does a man with a great wife and a great family throw it all away for a fling? Why do babies die? Why is there suffering? Why is there pain? Why is work, work? Genesis 3 explains it all.
We are not going to delve into all of those things, but we will look at the first dozen verses or so, because Satan goes toe to toe with Eve and essentially uses the same procedure he used with Jesus. Verse 1: "Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said..."
The Serpent's Strategy in Eden
"To the woman, indeed, has God said you should not eat from any tree of the garden?" Now here is what has happened. God created Adam, and He said, "Here is this whole garden. I don't want you to eat from the tree in the middle of the garden. You can eat from any tree you want, but not that one." Apparently, Adam had given that information to Eve. We have no record that God said that directly to Eve, so she received this information secondhand.
Along comes the serpent, and he says, "Really? Did God really say this?" Immediately, he starts to cast doubt on God's word. And underlying that doubt, I believe, is this message: why would a God of love do that, Eve? Why would a God of love create that tree and then tell you not to eat from it? That doesn't seem right.
We always had this with our kids — ongoing battles. We would say, "Don't play in the street," and they would say, "You don't want us to have any fun." We would say, "No, we don't want you to get hit by a car." That is the dynamic at work here. God's restrictions exist for protection, but the serpent frames them as cruelty or lovelessness.
Eve responds, "We can eat from the fruits of the trees in the garden, but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God said you should not eat it nor touch it, lest you die." Commentators make a point that she added to God's word, since God said nothing about touching it. But my assumption is she was not planning to bob for apples. Who knows.
Satan Drops All Subtlety
Now Satan does exactly what he does with Jesus — the subtlety is gone. He starts with this interesting little dialogue, this careful little dance, and then he abandons any illusion. He says flatly, "You're not going to die. God knows that the day you eat from it, your eyes will be open, and you will be like Him, and you will know good and evil." And with that, Satan is done. Boom, he is gone.
We have no time frame given for verse 6, but I picture it something like this. Here is the tree, and here is Eve. He has done his thing and left. Now, there is a whole forest in front of her, but all she can see is that one tree. She looks at it. She walks around it. She walks away from it — but she does not have enough sense to get out of there entirely. So she stays. She looks.
And then it happens. "She saw the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and desirable to make one wise. She took of its fruit and ate. She also gave some to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings."
"They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden." That is the first record in all of human history of abnormal behavior. And what causes abnormal behavior? Sin.
God's Question to Adam
"Then the Lord God called to the man and said to him, 'Where are you?' And he said, 'I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.' And He said, 'Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?'" That is a strong question. It is a significant challenge for Adam.
Remember, Jesus in His temptation is in the wilderness with nothing to eat for forty days. Adam is in paradise. And he sinned. God is essentially saying, "Adam, what happened? How did this come about?"
Now, Adam cannot say it was his environment. He cannot say it was his parents. He cannot say it was his socioeconomic background. He is almost completely out of excuses. But here is my theory on sin: you can take the most unimaginative person in the world, but when it comes to sin, he is suddenly Walt Disney. The most creative person in the room.
So Adam stops, thinks, gathers himself, and says, "It's the woman that You gave me." Notice he is not even really blaming Eve. He went beyond Eve. He did not say, "It's Eve." He said, "It's the woman You gave me." In other words: You created her, You set this up — God, it is Your fault. I would not even have eaten from that tree if You had not created it.
Where Are You?
If you are sitting here today and you did not take communion, or you would say you are not a Christian, I want you to see what is happening in that exchange. When God says, "Where are you, Adam?" He is not seeking information for Himself. That question is for Adam's benefit. God already knows where he is.
I received a call last night from a man visiting from Iowa who wanted to come to church. The first thing I asked him was, "Where are you staying?" Because if I know where he is, I can tell him how to get to me. God may be calling out to you in the same way today, asking, "Where are you? What kind of mess have you gotten yourself into? Do you understand the mess you are in, and do you understand the way out?"
The way out is not through cleaning up your own act. It is not through another series of broken resolutions. That is not the path. The path out is to come to Christ in repentance and faith — Him and Him alone — and to understand that when Jesus died on the cross, He paid the penalty for the sin of all those who would ever believe.
Resisting Temptation: Know Your Enemy
In Him. Will you believe? Will you come? Will you repent? If you will, it's paid for. He died for you. And the most important thing you can do is talk to the person who invited you, or talk to the people who will be in the front of the worship center after the service, or call somebody here at the church.
Here is Satan, and he takes essentially the same tack. He goes toe-to-toe, and there are great similarities between both the temptation of Jesus and the temptation of Adam and Eve. We'll come back to that in a minute. Let's finish the story. Matthew chapter four and Luke chapter four tell us that after this time, the devil had finished tempting Him, he departed, and immediately the angels came and they began to serve Him. It does not tell us how they served Him, and again, this is where we wish we had it in the text. I presume part of it was carry-out. I presume they brought food and they satisfied His hunger. See how it's met — God's way.
First Corinthians 10:13 and the Faithfulness of God
Now here we go. How can you resist temptation? As I said before, this is one of those lessons that you can learn from and use right away. First Corinthians 10:13 says this: "No temptation has overtaken you, but such as is common to man."
That's the first thing you need to understand. You're not in this all by yourself. I know what it's like — I do it every time I get the flu. Every time I get the flu, I say no one has ever been this sick, no one has ever hurt like this, no one has ever had pain like this, no one has ever had to overcome odds like this. Here — suck it up. Millions have. That's what he's saying. You're not that unique.
Do you see it jumping off the page? God is faithful. God is faithful, and He's going to prove that faithfulness by not allowing you to be tempted beyond what you can endure. You can never say the devil made you do it. You can never say you didn't have enough strength. Now, we're talking to Christians here. If you're not a Christian, all you can say is, "I do it, I do it, I do it." But for those of you who are Christians, there is no temptation so strong that you cannot resist it.
The Rubber Band: God Knows Your Maximum Elasticity
Satan will tempt you — go back to what we talked about earlier in the lesson — and God will test you. As those temptations and those tests come in your life, there may be times when you want to throw in the towel and quit. But don't.
The way we've used this in the past is that God knows the maximum elasticity of your faith. It's almost like you are one giant rubber band. God has a hold of you, and He is perfect at this. He just pulls, and you say, "Oh man, we're at the limit." And He says, "Really? Really?" And you're going, "I can't take it, I can't take it, I can't take it." And He says, "Obviously you can, or I wouldn't put you in this." Then He backs off.
In my flesh, I'm going to say, "I'm glad we got through that testing. That was tough. I'm glad that's over." But here's what has happened: all we've done is loosen the band up so we can start out further next time. And that's what you want. Because the testing of your faith produces endurance and perseverance — "count it all joy when you encounter various trials."
Listen, when you pray, "God, I want to grow. I want to grow closer to You. I want to fall in love with You. I want to know You more and more," here is what God hears: "Let me suffer. Test me. Try me." So there's one less prayer we'll be firing up there tonight, I imagine.
Know Your Enemy: Recognize Satan's Standard Operating Procedure
So let's take some time and ask the question: so what? How can you resist temptation? Here's the first thing — know your enemy. Recognize Satan's standard operating procedure.
First John chapter two, verses 15 and 16 says: "Do not love the world nor the things of the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in them. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but it is from the world."
Here's what I want you to see. Whether it's Jesus in the wilderness, or Eve in the garden, or you in your life, Satan always comes in one of these three ways. And I have to believe it's an advantage to know the signal — to know what he's going to do.
The Advantage of Knowing the Play
If you go to a baseball game and you look down at the third base coach, he's going through all of this. Why? Because if he just called out "bunt," the third baseman comes in, the first baseman comes in — that's a disadvantage. I was watching a high school state championship game on television last night, and they were flashing in cards and doing signals and signs. Why? Because if you just say "play man-to-man," it gives the offense an advantage to know what's coming.
When I was in high school — and I know I don't look it — I played a lot of sports. I played basketball, baseball, football, and golf. In football, I was the second-team quarterback, and God was very gracious that our first-team quarterback made it through the whole year. My job was to run the scout team. We took the second-team offense and ran the plays of whoever we were going to play the following week against the first-team defense. We were decent, so there were times in practice where you'd come up, take a snap, move back, hand the ball off, come around the end on a bootleg, and it would work.
Then the coach would say something like this: "Run it again." Well, it isn't going to work again. They know it's coming.
Know Your Enemy
Satan doesn't even try to conceal his play. Here's how he's coming. First, the lust of the flesh. You see it there in Matthew 4: "Command these stones to become bread." You're hungry. You want to eat? Short circuit God's process. A woman sees that the fruit is good for food. As I said, we're Walt Disney when it comes to sin. All of a sudden we use logic like this: if I've got these desires and God made these desires and God put them in me, then He must want me to fulfill them. That makes sense to us. Lust of the flesh — we're just blown about by every whim, every fleshly desire.
Or the lust of the eyes. The devil took Him to a high mountain and showed Him all this, saying, "Look at all this stuff." Or consider Eve — she sees the fruit and it is delightful to the eyes. So you're sitting in the office and there she is. Doesn't she look good? Doesn't he look good? Doesn't that look desirable?
Or the boastful pride of life. It's the pride that is in us. "If you're the Son of God, throw yourself down. If you're really God, just prove it." Or eat this and you'll be wise — in fact, you'll be just like God. Remember, that's how Lucifer became the devil: through pride. Ultimately, every sin that you and I commit goes back to pride. It manifests itself in different ways, but it flows from pride. You may say it's greed, but no — it's that you want to give a certain prideful appearance to everybody. All this sin flows back to pride, flows back to you and me saying, "I want my will, not God's will."
Temptation Is Not Sin
So we come to the "so what." Number one: know your enemy. Number two: remember that temptation is not sin. I have been with guys who have said, "I'm being tempted in this area, and since I'm being tempted, I might as well just go ahead and do it." There is a big difference between temptation and sin. Temptation is not sin. Obviously, the story we have before us today really emphasizes that. If temptation were sin, then Jesus sinned.
Take some decisive action. You're playing with fire, and sin is destructive. Don't be afraid to cut and run. Think of Joseph and Potiphar's wife — he didn't stick around and say, "Well, I'm just going to pray about this." He got out of there.
Cut Off the Path to Temptation
I had a guy — and whenever I tell these stories, part of the problem is you waste a lot of time trying to figure out who it is, but you don't know this guy. This was in Tucson when I was going down there. He came to me one morning and said, "I want to tell you something. My wife doesn't know. My family doesn't know. Nobody knows at this point, but you're going to know in a minute." I said, "All right." He said, "Over the last four or five years I've had a whole series of homosexual experiences." I said, "Okay, how does this happen?" He said, "Well, let me give you the one from last week. I go to the bookstore, meet this guy, and there it is." I said, "How about before that?" "I go to the bookstore, meet this guy." "How about before that?" "I go to the bookstore, meet this guy." Now, I'm not trained, but I said to him, "Let me give you a little advice — don't go to the bookstore." He said, "Doesn't that seem weak? Shouldn't I be fighting the temptation?" No. You fight the temptation by not going to the bookstore.
I had a lady — true story — come up to me and say, "Will you pray for me this week?" I said, "Sure." She said, "Do you want to know what it's about?" I said, "Absolutely." She said, "I have at home in the refrigerator a box of turtles. Will you pray I don't eat them?" I said, "That's a waste of time. Those turtles are done. You're going to eat every one of them. You didn't buy them to throw them away — you bought them to eat them." She said, "Do you think that's true?" I said, "Yes. Go home, take the turtles, destroy them, throw them in the garbage. Put the worst garbage you have around them so you're not even tempted to take them out and wash them off. Take them out and throw them in the big garbage."
I saw her the next week. I said, "How did you do with the turtles?" She said, "I ate the whole box." And I knew that. You wouldn't have had the turtles at home if you weren't going to eat them.
Get Control of Your Mind
Don't be afraid to acknowledge your weakness and get whatever it is out of there. Get control of your mind. Almost always, sin is something you have planned out in your brain before you have executed it with your body. You've thought about it. The best example I can think of is guys getting ready to go on road trips — trips where there's anonymity and nobody knows them. They'll begin to think about certain things and pursue those things in their minds rather than pursuing the things of God.
Here is what Paul writes to Timothy in 1 Timothy 6:11: "Flee these things and you, the man of God, pursue righteousness, right living and godliness, a genuine, consistent, authentic walk with God and faith and love and self-control." You can add to that list of things that will help you in resisting temptation — it is not limited to just those five things. I would add that you probably need to have a guy or a gal, depending upon your gender, that you can call and say, "Hey, I've got some issues here. I'm struggling. Can I meet you at Starbucks?"
Resisting Temptation
Can we grab a cup of coffee? Can I swing by the house? Can you come by? Can I meet you somewhere? That is how you resist temptation. And again, you add more to that. I am not holding up that as an exhaustive list. I am saying that is a great starting point that will get you a long way down the road in this thing.
Remember what I said at the beginning: here is a lesson you can use by the time you hit the exit sign out of this building. You have an enemy. I am watching these guys on TV, and I do not buy them for a second — binding this and binding that. No. Not any of the binding stuff. You run to the Father and cling to Him.
You have an adversary who is out to destroy you. He is not messing around. He is not playing. You might be — your Christian walk may just be a game to you — but he is serious about this. His desire is to destroy you, and he will use any tool possible to render you helpless and harmless for the kingdom of God. So you better pray. You better run to Him. You better hide in His life.
Closing Prayer
Father, we pray for each and every person in this room today, that our lives would be faithful to You. God, help us resist temptation. Help us understand the enemy. Help us take decisive action.
God, we pray for this week, for this movie, that You would make us sensitive to all the opportunities that are likely to be around us this week, if we are just sensitive enough to hear them and understand them. We pray that You would use that website, WhatsThePassion.com. We pray You would use those cards and those books, all of these tools — Your Word — that we would declare Your Word, witness to what You have done in our lives, and have the privilege to explain to people why Your Son died. God, use that work, will You, please?
Thank You for the people that are here. Thank You for the literally thousands of people we could, as a body, touch if in obedience we share this truth. God, we already begin to pray for Good Friday and for Easter — what a great time that is, a natural time in the calendar for us to have opportunities to share Your Word.
God, thank You for the leaders here at East Valley Bible Church, those that serve so faithfully. Help us resist the temptation to distrust Your promise, to presume on You, and ultimately to deny You and follow our own way. God, by Your grace and with Your strength, we will be the men and women and students that You would have us be. We present our lives, our bodies to You. We pray that You would use that to Your glory and for Your honor. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.