Episode Transcript
WEBVTT
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While our scripture eating this morning comes
from the Fourth Chapter of the Gospel,
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according to Matthew. Matthew, Chapter
Four, verses one through eleven. This
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is the word of the Lord.
Then Jesus was led up by the spirit
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into the wilderness to be tempted by
the devil. And when he had fasted
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forty days and forty nights afterward,
he was hungry. Now, when the
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tempter came to him, he said, if you are the son of God,
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command these stones become bread. But
he answered and said it is written.
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Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds
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from the mouth of God. Then
the devil took him up into the holy
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city, set him on the pinnacle
of the Temple and said to him,
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since you are the son of God, throw yourself down, for it is
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written he shall give his angels charge
over you and their hands they shall bear
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you up lest you dash your foot
against a stone. Jesus said to him,
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it is a written. Again,
you shall not tempt the Lords your
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God. Again the devil took him
up on an exceedingly high mountain and showed
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him all the kingdoms of the world
and their glory, and he said to
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him all these things I will give
you if you will fall down and worship
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me. Then Jesus said to him, Away with you, Satan, for
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it is written you shall worship the
Lords, your God, and him only
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you shall serve. Then the devil
left him and behold, angels came and
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ministered to him. Thus far this
reading of God's holy word, the grass
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withers in the flower fades, but
the word of our Lord endures forever.
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Please be seated well as we come
to this passage. This morning we come
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to a passage that is, I
think, probably fairly familiar to all of
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us. But though it is familiar
and it may even seem to be old
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hat, we may be that familiar
with it. What we read here,
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I think, is a lesson that
it is vital for us to learn well.
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Temptation and struggle with sinful desires is, as we all know, a
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problem that never goes away. Our
temptation to sin is a constant, even
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moment by moment, battle, and
it will be until the Lord Jesus returns
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again. And as I think about
temptation, as I've sought help for it
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in the past or ask people for
advice, it's been my experience that very
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often when we ask someone to help
us for it with advice for how to
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fight our sins or to resist our
temptations, very often the advice we get
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as something along the lines of just
don't do it or cut it out or
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get away from what tempts you.
Or maybe more spiritual advice would be pray
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more or, based on what we
read here, will memorize more scripture and
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then just quote it to the devil
when he tempts you. And all that
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really is very fine advice, but
it seems to me that there's something lacking
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there, and what's missing, I
think, is the reminder that sin is
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something that no one can defeat on
his own, though we've been saved and
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though the Holy Spirit has come to
dwell in our hearts and he lives with
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us to help us and to strengthen
us, nevertheless our temptations are very often,
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they are regularly so strong that we
can't overcome our sin with something,
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without something more than advice that essentially
tells us we need to try harder,
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because I can assure you, as
someone who has really work to try harder
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to overcome sin in my life,
I can tell you that no matter how
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hard you may buckle down or resolve
to do bear better or to swear your
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sin off with solemn oaths maybe,
or a sincere heart or deep conviction,
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just trying harder will not deliver you
from your sins and your weakness. It
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just, it just won't. What
we need isn't trying harder. What we
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need is the Gospel, because only
the Gospel can save you from your sins
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and deliver you from what you hate
and fear about yourself. And that's what
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this passage addresses this morning. Here
in Matthew, Chapter Four, we see
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Jesus do something more than just quote
Deuteronomy to the devil. At each point
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he does quote Deuteronomy to the devil, but he's doing something more than that.
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At each point where Jesus is tempted, he quotes a passage of scripture
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that reminds his heart of the promises
of his father and of the Gospel Message.
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In the first temptation, Satan tempts
Jesus to doubt his relationship with his
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father. It's a temptation of doubt. In the second temptation, Satan tempts
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Jesus to try to do things on
his own in a way that is contrary
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from his father's revealed will, and
he essentially tempts him to look out for
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number one. And in the third
temptation, Satan tempts Jesus to compromise his
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loyalty and his love for his father
and in order to get what he wants
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the easy way. And so what
I'd like is to do this morning is
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look at each of these temptations in
turn and I'd like us to see in
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each one how Satan tempts Jesus,
how Jesus Responds to Satan and what we
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can learn from his victory over the
tempter. Now, the temptation that Satan
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first attacks Jesus with is a temptation
of doubt. In versus one through four,
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we read this. Then Jesus was
led up by this spirit into the
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wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And when he had fasted forty days
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and forty nights afterward, he was
hungry. Sort of an understatement, you
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should think. Now, when the
tempter came to him, he said,
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if you are the son of God, command that these stones become bread.
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But Jesus answered and said it is
written, man shall not live by bread
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alone, but by every word that
proceeds from the mouth of God. Now
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don't forget the context here. Immediately
before Satan tempted Jesus, the very last
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thing that Matthew tells us about is
Jesus is baptism at the Jordan River by
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John The baptist. It's in the
two verses right before it that we read
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this. When Jesus had been baptized, he came up immediately out of the
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water and behold, the heavens were
open to him and he saw the spirit
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of God descending like a dove and
alighting upon him, and suddenly a voice
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came from heaven saying this is my
beloved son and whom I am well pleased.
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So the father gave Jesus this wonderful
affirmation, this promise and encouragement,
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just as he's entering into his ministry. But no sooner does that happen than
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Satan comes along and tries to undermine
Jesus is confidence in his father's word.
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And the reason that he does this
is because if he can get Jesus to
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doubt his relationship to the father,
then Jesus is entire ministry will be undermined,
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because if he doesn't have that confidence
that he needs, he will not
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be able to endure everything that his
father's leading him to go do. I
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mean, you think about it,
Jesus was facing three long years of trying
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to get his message across to a
bunch of thick headed people who couldn't seem
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to get it. He was going
to be misunderstood, disliked and rejected by
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all the people who, by right, should have been his friends and admires.
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He was going to face abandonment,
loneliness, derision, mockery, betrayal
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and eventual death. God was calling
Jesus to a long, long road of
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obedience in the face of the worst
possible circumstances, and unless Jesus was sure
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and confident of the relationship that he
had with his father, none of that
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would be possible for long, would
it? And notice as well that Satan
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attacks Jesus when he's is low and
is weak as anyone can get. He
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comes and temps him after forty days
of fasting, he's physically weak, he's
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exhausted. Jesus is at the end
of his rope physically and the temptation that
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Satan gives him is one that hits
him right there, right at the point
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where he is at his weakest,
his hunger. Now, I know how
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I get if I've missed a couple
of meals, right, I mean I
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and I've tried fasting before and no, you try it and it's a spiritual
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discipline in part because it's darned hard. When you're fasting, you get grumpy,
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tired, your listless, you get
frustrated. Y'All know what I'm talking
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about. You've heard of people talk
about getting angry. You know that particular
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kind of anger that you have when
you're hungry. And the point is,
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a hungry person is an emotionally weak
person. And Satan comes to Jesus and
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he's says this. He says if, if, if you are the son
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of God, just turn these stones
into bread. If you are, if
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you really are, you can do
that. And the underlying thrust, I
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think of this temptation, or what
he's saying, is this in verse one.
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The spirit led you here and you
are so miserably hungry. Why,
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Jesus, why would a loving God
and father do that to you? You
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know, you know, maybe I'm
just throwing this out there, maybe you're
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wrong about your relationship with him.
But Jesus responds by quoting Deuteronomy Chapter Eight
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in verse three. In the context
there in Deuteronomy chapter eight basically is this.
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We can trust God's words because of
the powerful demonstrations of love that he's
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shown to his people. That passage
was an encouragement by Moses to trust God's
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word, even in the hardest of
times, by looking back and recalling what
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God has done for us. And
the point here is that we are to
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hold fast to the testimony that we've
been given. Though things may seem bleak,
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it is the word of God,
and that alone that will sustain in
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us in the midst of struggles,
and the word here, in view,
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is Matthew. Seventeen. Right before
Jesus went out into the Wilderness to fast,
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a voice from heaven had come and
told everyone they are that day that
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Jesus was the very son of God. His father had spoken, and Jesus
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now can hold on to God's word. And the Word Dou was is very
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similar. When we're alone, abandoned, hungry, weak, needy, lonely,
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whatever it may be, when we
don't have what we long for,
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what we desperately want, or need. We can get to a point where
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we start to question our relationship with
the Lord, can't we? We can
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look at our lives and we can
say, Lord, if you love me,
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if I am really yours as an
adopted child, then why am I
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so miserable? Or we may look
at the people around us and we could
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say, Lord, you know,
those people are so happy, go lucky.
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They they do everything you say not
to do. They refuse to do
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anything you say they should do and
they seem like their lives are pretty easy.
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How come they are so happy when
I am so unhappy? And then
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we can get caught up in sinful
patterns, and when we do, the
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tempter pounces. You know, this
is this is how the devil works.
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Right here. You're going through a
time, there's something going on. It
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could be just trafficker, it could
be a life altering crisis, and he
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comes to you and he says,
Hey, try this, it might help,
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you might like it. You know
what, if you just did this,
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things would be better. And you
go now, I don't think I
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should. He goes, Oh,
yeah, it's a good idea to say.
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Man, he says yeah, and
then you go okay, fine,
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and you do it and he goes, you did it, you did it,
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and he rubs your nose in it. He talks us into sin and
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when we sin, he plays the
role of the accuser. Hasatana in Hebrew,
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is the accuser. And then he
lays it on and he makes you
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try to Dow or he tries to
make you doubt your relationship with your father.
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But when he does that, we
need to try to remember to do
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what Jesus did here and we need
to remind ourself of our standing in Christ.
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When I was in seminary I had
a professor, one of the godliest
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men I've ever met. In his
name was Knox Chamblin, pretty good name
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for a Presbyterian, John Knox Chamblin, and he used to tell us this.
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This is courses in Mississippi, and
he would say, Oh, ladies
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and gentlemen, the most important thing
you can do every day is to preach
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the Gospel to yourself. And he
was right. We have to preach the
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Gospel to ourselves. Satan tried to
get Jesus to doubt his father's affirmation about
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him, but Jesus resisted. And
when we are tempted to doubt, we
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need to do the same thing.
We need to remind ourself of what scripture
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says about us. For instance,
in Galatians, chapter four, verse four
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and following, when the fullness of
time had come, God sent forth his
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son, born of a woman,
born under the law, to redeem those
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who were under the law, in
order that we might receive the adoption as
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sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of
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his son into your hearts, crying
out Ah Bah, that is Daddy,
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father. Therefore, you are no
longer a slave but a son. And
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if a son on an air,
through God, of God, through Christ,
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you see your father in heaven gives
you the precisely same sort of wonderful
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affirmation that he gave to his son
Jesus. So remember that and and believe.
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Believe, for instance, what Paul
says in Romans Chapter Eight. He
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says, if God is for us, who can be against us? He
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who did not spare his own son
but delivered him up for us all,
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how shall he not, with him, also freely give us all things?
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For I am persuaded that neither death
nor life, nor angels, nor principalities,
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nor powers, nor things present,
nor things to come, nor height
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nor depth nor any other created thing
shall be able to separate us from the
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love of God which is in Christ, Jesus, Our Lord. That is
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the Gospel. You are his,
he loves you, he will bless you
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and he will never leave you nor
forsake you. So the first temptation is
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one of doubt. The second temptation
Satan attacks Jesus with is to try to
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get him to reject God's way and
do thinks his own way. Then the
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devil took him up into the holy
city and set him on the pinnacle of
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the Temple and he said to him, since you're the son of God,
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throw yourself down, for it is
written he shall give his angels charge over
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you and in their hands they shall
bear you up lest you dash your foot
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against a stone. Jesus said to
him, it is written again, you
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shall not tempt the Lord your God. So this time Satan takes Jesus to
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Jerusalem and puts him at the highest
point of the temple, way up above
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the top of the Kidren Valley,
at some six hundred feet above the valley
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floor, and he tries to trip
Jesus up, this time by quoting scripture
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himself. And what Satan's trying to
do is to get Jesus to believe that
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this is what God would have him
do, by misquoting the Bible in order
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to get him to believes seemingly biblical
advice to advance purely selfish desires. And
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it's Ironic, I think, that
the passage that Satan quotes is from the
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ninety first psalm, and if you
were to go and read the Psalm in
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its context, you'd find that the
whole point of the Psalm that Satan quotes
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is trust God, Walk in God's
way, pays and defeat the evil one.
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But Satan is shameless. He's shameless. He will do or say anything
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if he thinks it will give him
some advantage over us in our lives.
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Now, the temptation he gives Jesus
may not seem like much of a temptation
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at first. It seems a little
bit more like a suicide pact, I
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think, but if you think about
it, it really is tempting. See
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what Satan was tempting Jesus to do
was to go way up on this high
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place above the city and then to
jump off and swoop down like Superman over
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the temple and prove to everybody that
he was the son of God. And
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First Corinthians chapter one, we're told
that the Jews wanted signs and wonders.
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Right, so, Satan says.
They want it, you should give it
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to them. But the reason that's
wrong is because God's means of showing his
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power is not through mighty works and
undoubtable, astounding miracles. The way that
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God shows his love and his power
is through acts of selflessness, acts of
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love. Most especially, Jesus is
dying for us on the Cross. And
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First Corinthians chapter one we read this. The message of the Cross is foolishness
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to those who are perishing, but
to us, who are being saved,
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it's the power of God. For
its written I will destroy the wisdom of
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the wise and bring to nothing the
understanding of the prudent. Where is the
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wise? Where's the scribe? Where
is the disputer of this age? Has
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Not God made footless the wisdom of
this world? For since, in the
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wisdom of God, the world,
through wisdom, did not know God,
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it pleased God, through the foolishness
of the message, preach to save those
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who believe. For the Jews request
as sign and the Greek seek after wisdom.
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But We preach Christ crucified to the
Jews a stumbling block and to the
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Greek's foolishness. But to those who
are called both Jew and Greek, Christ
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the power of God and the wisdom
of God, because the foolishness of God
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is wiser than men and the weakness
of God is stronger than men. See,
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if Jesus had done what Satan tempted
him to do, he would have
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turned on its head the entire purpose
of his coming. So Jesus Responds to
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Satan by saying to by quoting Deuteronomy, chapter six, Verse Sixteen, which
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says in its completeness, you shall
not test the Lord, your God,
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as you tested him at Massa.
Now, Massa is what we read from
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the ninety five Psalm this morning.
When God they tested God and he swore
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that he would not let them enter
his rest. That was the place in
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the Wilderness Wanderings where the people demanded
that God bring water out of a rock
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to prove to them that he was
with them, and they did that.
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They doubted his providence, even after
the plagues on EACHYP and the Red Sea
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crossing and the daily provision of manner
and all of the other wonders in the
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mirror, in the in the Sinai
Peninsula, and in the context of Deuteronomy
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six, what Jesus quotes, we
find that Moses is rehearsing for them all
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of the Lord's past goodness to them
and of his promises of so much more
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goodness in the future. And on
the basis of that, Moses urges them
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not to follow their own sinful desires
and temptations, but rather to trust God
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and believe the good news that he
will bless them and work all things together
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for good for them. There are
a lot of people out there in the
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world today who don't buy that what
I'm about to say, but this is
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true. God does have a detailed
plan for our lives and there is a
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right thing to do in every circumstance. But the hard, simple fact of
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the matter is that often, always, always, walking in Jesus's steps is
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incredibly difficult. He said that the
servant is not greater than the master,
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and he told us that we all
have to take up our crosses and follow
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him, and what he means by
that is that we're all called to imitate
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him by showing the same love he
showed us to other people in order to
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love them, is he first loved
us. He calls on us to lay
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aside our pride, to lay aside
our selfish desires and goals, and to
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pour ourselves out for other people,
even as he poured himself out for our
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good. And The promise of the
Gospel is that, though this sort of
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life seems to be one hundred and
eighty degrees opposite of what we think is
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best for us, more often than
not the Bible tells us that it's actually
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the very means by which God blesses
us. He promises us a life filled
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with joy and peace, hope,
comfort all the rest of the fruit of
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the spirit, as we walk as
he walked, as we live the life
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he calls us to live. But
when we look at that kind of life
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we think, well, I'm not
going to get what I want out of
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that. That is not going to
make me happy. But here's God's promise
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to you. He will always provide, he will always take care of you.
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Now, what he gives you will
probably not be what you want,
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but, like the rolling Stone said, you may not get what you want,
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but you'll always get what you need. And we see in scripture.
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We see in our own lives,
if we really stop and think about it,
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how wonderful God's provision and grace to
US already has been. We have
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been blessed in so many ways,
and experience teaches us that, at the
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end of the day, obedience to
God's call in our lives never leaves us
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miserable, but always leaves us blessed. But when the going gets tough,
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it is so hard to do that, when we're tempted to take the reins
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of our lives into our own hands, we have to remember the promises of
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scripture and we have to actively trust
God to take care of us. And
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the good news is that he has
so far and that he will in the
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future, and we know it's true
because he's promised it. So the first
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temptation is one of doubt, the
second temptation is to look out for number
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one, essentially, and the third
temptation, Satan attacks Jesus with, is
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one of compromise. Again, the
devil took him up on an exceeding high
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mountain and showed him all the kingdoms
of the world and their glory, and
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he said to him, all these
things I will give you if you will
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fall down and worship me. Then
Jesus said to him, Away with you,
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Satan, for it is written you
shall worship the Lord, your God,
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in him only shall you. Sir. So, having tried his hand
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at misquoting scripture, Satan throws that
one away and this time he tempts Jesus
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by promising to get out of his
way and just let him have all the
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nations of the world without a fight. He says that he will give Jesus
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this supposed easy victory, without the
struggle, without the suffering, without the
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rejection, without the death of the
cross, without any of that. If,
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if Jesus will just do this is
one teeny tiny, just little thing,
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just once bow down and worshiped Satan. Now there are a whole lot
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of reasons that's a bad idea,
but the chief of those, the chief
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of those is that though Jesus came
so that his reign might extend to the
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ends of the Earth, Jesus did
not come to be an earthly king.
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Jesus came to conquer Satan, to
crush his head, as God said in
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Genesis Three Fifteen, to die in
the place of his people, to suffer
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for you and me. That was
the point and his mission would have been
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an utter failure if he'd come and
just taken gearge. You see, Jesus
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didn't come to make us subjects in
his kingdom or to make us butlers and
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maids in his house. He didn't
come to just take charge. Rather,
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he came to suffer in our place
so that we might enter into a loving
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relationship with him as his bride and
his children and his friends. But this
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temptation must have been pretty strong to
Jesus to avoid the pain, the rejection
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of everyone that he loved, the
unspeakably horrible death of the Cross and all
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Satan as for was it he just
bow down and worship him this this one
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time? But Jesus says in the
old King James I like it better get
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thee behind me, Satan. And
he quotes Deuteronomy Thirteen. And in the
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context of Deuteronomy six verses fourteen to
thirteen, Moses is making the point that
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God's call to us is to center
every aspect of our lives on him and
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on his message of hope for us. There Moses reminds us, he tells
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us God hasn't held back anything from
us. That is good for us.
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Rather, he's given us everything that
we need at every moment and, most
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especially, we now know, he's
given us his son to die that we
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might live. To put it in
the words of David in Psalm thirty seven,
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trust in the Lord and do good, dwell in the land and feet
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on his faithfulness. Delight yourself also
in the Lord, and he will give
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you the desires of your heart.
We know, I think we know most
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of the time, that God's plan
is a good plan for our lives,
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and most of the time we believe
that he will work all things together for
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good for us. But the point
of the passage that Jesus quotes is to
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impress upon us that as we hold
on to God's promises and as we walk
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in his ways, we can have
a one hundred percent confidence that he will
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give us what is good for us. But often it seems like we want
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things we just don't get. We
want possessions, we want friends, we
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want respect, we want better jobs, we want better kids, we want
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better this or that or the other
thing, and we don't get it.
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And the ten ter comes to us
and tells us that all that we have
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to do to get whatever it is
that we want is just compromise a bit,
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you know, if you just cut
corners this one time, if you
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just, you know, tell this
little white lie or cheat just a little
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bit, then we can advance our
wants and desires. When I was in
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seminary, I had a professor that
I thought the world of and wanted to
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impress. But he's one of the
smartest people I've ever met and it was
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hard because he was always twenty steps
ahead of you, not just wander two.
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And he gave us a take home
mid term and I wanted to impress
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him and I hit something that I
knew was would that I that I read,
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I knew I'd thought about, but
I was completely I was having that
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test blank and I gave into the
temptation to open the book to remind myself.
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I got a good grade on that
paper. But that that was close
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to twenty years ago and I still
cringe and shame every time I think about
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it. Just one teeny tiny little
compromise. See, sin always promises to
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give us the desires of our hearts. It shows us some wonderful promise and
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it tells us we can have our
wants or our needs fulfilled if we just
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do this one teeny tiny little thing. But proverbs one, Thousan, fourteen
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twelve says that there is a way
that seems right to a man, but
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in the end it is the way
of death. And who among us has
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not learned that lesson? It's sin
looks like it will be sweet to the
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tongue, but when you put it
in your mouth it's like gravel between your
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teeth. Oh, maybe whatever it
is you're doing will make things better for
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a while, maybe you'll like it
for a while, but in the long
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run sin always leads to heartbreak.
But the message that Jesus reminded himself of
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and that we have to remind ourselves
of is that when we delight ourselves in
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the Lord, then he will give
us the desires of our hearts. We
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have a sure promise and we know
that he will never fail us. And
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in the end we see that Jesus
is trust in the father was well founded.
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Verse Eleven. Then the devil left
him and behold, angels came and
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ministered to him. Jesus resisted the
Devil by holding on to the Gospel,
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and then, and only then,
the devil left him and send angels to
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bear him up see whatever we want
or need, or whatever it is that
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that Jesus, whatever want or need
that Jesus had, was taken care of
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by the direct command of his father. Jesus defeated Satan by holding on to
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the Gospel and to the promises found
in scripture. But I want you to
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notice that it didn't happen right away. First there were forty days of hunger.
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Then it was temptations, one after
another, hitting him right where he
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was at his week is, right
where he was most susceptible to air.
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And notice that he didn't defeat Satan
by living a sin sinless life and being
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perfect, which Jesus could have done
because he's God. Nor did he do
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it by trying harder. Rather,
Jesus defeated Satan and Jesus lived to victorious
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life by holding fast to what he
knew, by holding fast to the word
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of God. And so is we
wrap it up this morning. Let me
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encourage you hold on to what you
know. Like most of us, I
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think I've learned this lesson the hard
way. Temptation is often seemingly impossible to
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resist. Our weaknesses and our failings
make doubt or looking out for number one
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or compromise seem like the only choice
a lot of times, but if you
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learn and hold fast to the promises
of the Gospel found in scripture, God
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will provide. He just will trust
in the word of the Lord and he
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will always, always, prove himself
worthy of your trust. He loves you,
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He provides for you, and his
ways are always the ways to true
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happiness, and that is good news. Amen.
