“When Tempted…” (Part 1 of 2)

Not every desire simple today on Truth for Life will learn that all of our desires have the potential for evil, continuing our series faith that works here is Alister read everything the Bible in James chapter 1 we were in verse 12 and so that means that tonight would in verse 13 is the great advantage in working consecutively through the Bible. It means that at least you know where you have to go next and it also means that you can't skip the hard parts and it also means that no one will ever think that you chose a particular section. Just because of them, unless they are egomaniacs or something so we ran the 13 verse of James chapter 1 when tempted no one should say God is tempting me for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone, but each one is tempted when by his own evil desires. He is dragged away and enticed. Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. Don't be deceived, my dear brothers every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the father of the heavenly lights, who doesn't change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created keep our Bibles open and just pause and ask God's help.

What we don't know. Please teach us what we don't have. Please give us what we are not, please make us for Jesus sake man. I think that verse 16 is probably the fulcrum of the section that we have just read.

If you like. If a fulcrum is what I remembered to be from school. It is the balancing point is that it's the point at which the teacher totters in the talks or teachers, and various 16 set as it is right in the heart of this little section 5 words in Greek.

Six words here with the' in the word don't seven words without the' do not be deceived, my dear brothers, I think, and I hope to show this to you that this statement at the heart of this really isn't is the key to our understanding what James is teaching on this matter of temptation.

We said this morning that he makes the shift from trials which we have seen come in all kinds of forms they're not uncommon they're not unusual, they are not obstacles to our spiritual growth and in these trials God's purpose and plan for us is that we might be able to stand up to the test and that we might come through them when it comes to the matter of temptation. Then we discover that while God uses trials to test his workmanship, namely ourselves to task because in order to prove us to prove that what God is fashioning is actually reliable. God does not operate in the same way when it comes to the issue of temptation. Now, let's just define temptation simply so that were not in any doubt let us define temptation as an enticement to sin and evil.

What is temptation temptation is an enticement to sin and evil and evil is simply that which is contrary to God's law and God's will, we needn't, at least in biblical terms debate the nature of evil, insofar as it is not which runs at counter motion to what God has declared for his people in his word in his will and in his law, so James as a pastor of those to whom he writes as a faithful shepherd is issuing the right kind of warnings and the right kind of leadership he doesn't. You will notice in verse 13 entered into a philosophical discussion on the problem of evil or the origins of evil, and I'm not going to either there's no reason for me to if he doesn't, what he dies, you will notice is state quite categorically that God is not in the business of attempting his children.

God is not the author of temptation. God does not tempt us to sin. If God were to tempt us to evil, then that would require a delight or a capacity for evil in God, which is absolutely impossible. And that is what he saying there. God cannot himself be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone.

So having said that a site in a matter of a few words. James then goes on to explain the source of temptation. If God is not responsible for tempting us, then what is the process that is involved in temptation and in doing so he is providing instruction and he is providing encouragement so that we might be forewarned, and so that we might understand this process and so that we might be enabled in believing God and entrusting his word to resist all and every enticement to sin work through the verse is a simply as we can. Noticing.

First of all, in verse 14 that temptation begins with our individual desires each one each individual is tempted when notice the phrase by his own evil desire. James is not suggesting there. The Bible is not suggesting that every desire on our part is evil is using the adjective evil in order to describe a particular kind of desire that is related to the issue of temptation itself, but we should note that because we live in a fallen world.

Although not all of our desires are evil. All of our desires have the capacity for evil. So for example, the desire for food has the capacity for gluttony. The desire for marital fidelity has the capacity for adultery. The desire for the enjoyment of sexual fulfillment within marriage has the capacity for fornication out with the bonds of marriage. Each desire in itself may not be evil, but because we live in a fallen world.

All of our desires have the potential for evil really points this out I think is fairly straightforward.

I am sure you would agree. Each one is tempted by his own evil desire because when he's doing it as it is cut in the ground out from underneath as when we are instinctively wanting to blame our desires, our temptations and our corruptions on other people from the very beginning in the Garden of Eden we find that both Adam and Eve try and pass the buck. God comes Adam and he says Adam what are you things going on here. What is he say this woman that you gave me is not my problem is hers. He comes to even he says Eve we have a problem here. She says this serpent that came into the guard and it is absolutely basic endemic in the lives of people, even in our children when we want to confront them with responsibility when there at the tiniest they find the capacity to explain that really it's not their problem, and so as we grow up as grown-up little ones. We blame other people. We blame our environment. We may even blame like Tom Sawyer did the devil himself.

If you read Tom Sawyer lately remembered that he explains to his aunt Polly, the devil made me do it. It was the devil made me do it in and Polly grabbed him by the years and does all kinds of things to them in order make it clear Tom Sawyer. You can't escape. In that way and that's what James is enforceable. Don't deceive yourself success you cannot in this issue of temptation, none of us can escape the fact of personal responsibility. We cannot escape the find of personal responsibility. Note the notion of each individual's own evil desire is significant insofar as not everyone is tempted, in the same way to the same extent by the same things. For example, I cannot conceive of a circumstance where I would be tempted to steal tickets for an ice hockey game that is in say enemy about my and my ability to resist the temptation to become a thief, but it simply says that I have virtually zero interest as best as I know in ice hockey as it exists at recognizing your government is a Philistine for such an acknowledgment. But then I than the charge fits me but for someone else to those tickets for the Detroit whatever's on the Montréal somethings may represent a significant attraction so there's a fairly trivial illustration. We, as I think it probably is, but nevertheless, the notion of attraction, which drags as a way and entices artists. It's what James is referencing here in verse 14 it in the English standard version uses the verb lures lures not dragged away it. It reads each one is tempted when he is lured and enticed. I think that is a word and I should have taken time to check in but I think allure has something to do with fishing as it is a is a fishing work so you actually use lures what I know about ice hockey is just slightly lower than what I know about fishing so I'm on very dangerous territory with this analogy, but I think it I've seen it in in some of these shots really sell beef turkey which is another thing I have zero interest in, and incidentally people to chew on that stuff deserve to spend their life and ice hockey games are for our fishing, but I've seen those those big metal things all gaily colored and everything and and I think I saw that the sticker next. Lynwood said they were lures and even what they do is the lure fish. They have some enticing capacity to the now. This is the picture here and it speaks to the issue of our own individual desires which we find ourselves lured to dragged away towards and enticed by the way in which we can recognize this in eyes is when it happens, we will discover that when our minds go into neutral. They will go back to those things that are very attractive to us.

That is why, incidentally, I have no more to say about this.

That is why the that the lure and the enticement of pornography in young boys become such a significant thing at a later point in their life because they are lured by such a thing. They are enticed by such a think they are dragged away by such a thing, and when their minds go into neutral.

They are driven by images which their tiny minds cannot fully process or manage in some can speak to that in a way that they would rather not know if we continue the thought in verse 14 of this fishing analogy and I'm not sure I can speak with any authority about what goes on in the mind of a fish and find I their definition of minds I don't I know I should have checked.

I don't know but I let's assume for a moment for for the sake of the analogy will assume the fish of mine and so it's not inconceivable that when Mrs. Carr send all Freddie Carr on one of his first trips by himself.

She warned if you get out there. You may very quickly find that there are these things that are dangling in front of you that are gaily colored that they have all kinds of enticements in them and and you may be tempted to go after them once as Mrs. Carter told what ever you do do that because the attractive nature simply conceals the dreadful impact that you will find. If you are tempted to take the bait, swallow, lure, or whatever it is so Freddie goes off as he swims around he sees one. He remembers what his mother says he swims away. Please got it in his mind and he system so I definitely shouldn't bite that finger there would be nothing wrong with just going back to have another little located so he does a 360 and comes around and looks at it again and the second time he looks at it it looks even better than the first time and he begins to wonder whether his mother had his best interest at heart or whether she knew something that was fabulous that she didn't want him to know and that she was hiding it from him and somehow or another wanted to deprive him of what it would be to become a fully fledged lure, swallowing fish, well forget the fish now is just talk about ourselves. These kind of preoccupations if we are honest, we understand these kind of attractions are offered in our society in multiple ways in order that we might buy our own evil desires be lured, dragged away, enticed, preoccupied, and ensnared by its no different really what James is saying from the little routine statements that have made 100 times and can now for the hundred and first because I figure there's always someone who hasn't heard this and wants to write it down so I thought reconnection, so an action rebar habit. So I habit. Reply character Sola character, reap a destiny but it begins in the mind. Every sin is an inside job temptation cannot be laid at the feet of God. Temptation cannot be ascribed to our environment.

Ultimately, or to someone else or their predicament or their initiative, whatever that might have been. Everyone says James is dragged away and enticed by their own evil desire, and in verse 15, he follows it up and he sets down the cycle you in verse 12 this morning we saw that there is a cycle that leads to life, persevering on the trial standing the test and a crown of life that cycle one here in verse 15 cycle to and this cycle takes us down the path that ends in after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. See the real danger zone or the intersection to be avoided. Is this intersection. The place where desire and opportunity meet where desire and opportunity meet is a dangerous intersection, one without the other.

You can probably handle it, but the two together you going to be a dead man when desire and opportunity coincide. It is often the location of disaster when thinker Ferguson preached here. He preached on this passage in the evening. I wanted you to remember how he described the process we describe the cycle because he gave us six words and that these were those were his words. He said that the cycle of temptation goes along these lines number one attraction number two deception number three preoccupation number four conception number five. He said was subjection subjection and what he meant by that was this that when you get yourself into that situation you very quickly become enslaved, consumed, addicted first just an attractive proposition that your uncle or your grandmother told you to stay away from. But what are they know those old people before you knew where you are deceived by the very circumstances he became preoccupied by sin was conceived and now your subjugated and his final word was the word desperation desperation and I remember he said when the cycle gets to this point we despair on account of our circumstances and confronted by our failure were told by Satan that we might as well give up completely, because were in such dire difficulty that there is no way back.

That's why I say to the verse 16 is the fulcrum. What does Jim say do not be deceived, dear brothers, don't be deceived by this kind of nonsense brothers and sisters in the words of the of the Sunday school song. When Satan says there's no way back.

The answer is there is a way back in the songwriter puts it in these terms, there's a way back to God. From the dark paths of sin. There's a door there's wide open, that we may come in and is a Calvary's cross. That's where we begin when we come as a sinner to Jesus as the message of the gospel that is Alastair back with the great warning about the source and cycle of temptation listing to Truth for Life. Part one of a message titled when tempted at the end of today's message Alastair referred to a way back to God. From the dark paths of sin.

If you're not familiar with the gospel. I will suggest you take a moment and visit our website listen to a short six minute video that explains God's plan of salvation for you.

It's called the story and you'll find it@truthforlife.org/story Alastair also pointed out that even small children are tempted to sin in their tempted to cover it up by blaming someone else. That's one reason why it's important for us to teach children about God's word. From an early age.

So what are your apparent someone who works with young kids you love the book were offering called Bible stories. Every child should know this is a hardcover story book that retells more than 120 Bible stories. Each story is 2 to 4 pages long, makes it perfect for bedtime reading or to read over the course of the year. There's even a ribbon attached so you can mark your place for tomorrow's story Bible stories every child should know opens up God's word in a way that will engage the imagination of young children. The stories all include colorful pictures. They introduce kids to people like Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah Moses King David all the way up to Jesus and the apostles.

We especially like the way this book helps explain the Old Testament stories and how they point forward to Jesus. We highly recommend this book as an introduction to the Bible for your small children or your grandchildren, you can request your copy when you make a donation to truth for like today, just click the image of the book Bible stories every child should know. Visit our website for life.org/about Lapine temptation comes at us from every angle. It hits every one of our senses, hinting that there is something better knowing us were missing out. Life is an unceasing battle against Satan's deception, but there is an antidote from tomorrow to find out why we don't have to be enslaved to slip Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life learning