obituary, which I do every day. And you see people who were born
late 20s or the 30s, and then they've got a really young picture. And a lot of people say, I don't
know who that is. So one that If you're going to
send us one, send one that kind of looks like you do now, so
we'll know who you are. All right. This is such a well-known
portion of Scripture. by the Lord's people, and I will
by no means get all the way through this tonight. Actually, if I
can get through the first two verses kind of as an introduction
to this, I'll be thankful for that, and I hope that this will
be sheep food for all of the Lord's people. But let me read
the biggest portion of Genesis chapter 22. And it came to pass after these
things that God did tempt Abraham and sent unto him Abraham. And he said, behold, here I am. And God said, take now thy son,
thine only son Isaac. The word only means beloved or
darling, darling son. Take now thy son, thine darling
son Isaac. whom thou lovest and get thee
into the land of Moriah and offer him there for a burnt offering
upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.' And Abraham
rose up early in the morning, no delay. He saddled his ass
and took two of his young men with him. and Isaac his son,
and claimed the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up and
went unto the place of which God had told him. And then on
the third day, Abraham lifted up his eyes and sought the place
afar off. And Abraham said unto his young
men, abide ye here with the ass. And I and the lad will go yonder
and worship and come again to you." And Abraham took the wood of
the burnt offering and laid it upon Isaac his son. And he took
the fire in his hand and a knife and they went both of them together.
And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father and said, My father? And he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire
and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And
Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a
burnt offering. So they went, both of them, together. And they came to the place which
God had told him of. And Abraham built an altar there,
and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid
him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched forth his
hand and took the knife to slay his son. The angel of the Lord
called unto him out of heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham. And he said, here am I. And he said, lay not thine hand
upon the lad, neither do thou anything to him. For now I know
that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son,
thine only son, thy darling son, from me.' And Abraham lifted
up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in a
thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the
ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his
son. And Abraham called the name of
that place Jehovah Jireh. As it is said to this day, in
the mount of the Lord it shall be seen. Verse 15, And the angel of the
Lord called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time, and
said, By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou
hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only,
or darling son, that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying
I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven and as the
sand which is upon the seashore. And thy seed shall possess the
gate of his enemies. And in thy seed shall all the
nations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my voice. So Abraham returned unto his
young men, and they rose up and went together to Beersheba. And Abraham dwelt at Beersheba. And we'll stop our reading there
with verse 19. And we'll ask for God's blessings
now upon our service. Our Father, we come before You
this evening through the glorious person and work of Your darling
Son, even Your only begotten Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is our access into Your presence,
we know that. He Himself is the way, He is
the truth, and He is the life, and nobody can come to you, Father,
except through your Son. We do cherish the Savior. So very, very thankful for Him. You gave us unto Him an everlasting
covenant grace. And He has always been the surety
of your people, our Savior. And He entered into this world
to become your sacrifice for our sins. And by that burnt offering,
you put away the sins of all of your people. We're so thankful
for such a Savior, such a mighty Redeemer, who bought us and who
was raised again from the dead because of the justification
of our souls that He had accomplished upon the cross of Calvary. We
rejoice in this great cross work of our Savior. And we have gathered
together this evening to sing His praise, to read of Him here
in picture and in typology, and then to listen to the Word of
God expounded. We give thanks, Lord, that You
have directed our steps here this evening. I trust that all of us can say
that this, of all the places on this earth where we could
possibly be, this is the one where we want to be. This is
where you feed your people. This is where the shepherd meets
with his sheep. And this is where your people
are fed and encouraged admonished in the things of our great God. We're certainly mindful of those
who've been mentioned. We are so thankful that your
sovereign will is always accomplished. Give grace to those who are being
tested, those who are under severe trials, and Lord, comfort your
dear people who sorrow, but they sorrow not as others who have
no hope. They sorrow because a dear loved
one has been taken, and yet there is with that sorrow joy, that
there is everlasting peace in the presence of the Savior. We ask, O Lord, for the Thomas
family, as the funeral is conducted this coming Friday, that your
will would be accomplished there. May the Christ of our God be
exalted and May sinners be admonished to look unto Jesus, the author
and the finisher of true faith. And now as we turn our attention
to the Word of God, open our minds and open our hearts that
we would be attentive to the Word of the Gospel and that our
great Savior, one infinitely greater than Isaac, your darling
son. May he be magnified in this service. Bless us with faith to believe
our God. Forgive us for our unbelief. Draw us ever closer unto the
Savior. In His name, I ask all of these
things. Amen. As we come to Genesis chapter
22, it begins this way, and it came to pass after these things
that God did tempt Abraham. This is going to be, and here's
the title of the message, this is going to be Abraham's greatest,
greatest trial. Now he's had a lot of trials
in his life that have been recorded in the Word of God. Certainly
all of them have been recorded because it would take too large
of a book to set forth all of the testings of Abraham, all
of the temptations that he has endured. But there are several
that are set forth in the Word of God. First of all, Abraham
was called from his father's house out of Ur of the Chaldees
to leave behind his land, his property, most of his family,
and to go out and to just follow the Word of the Lord. That's
a severe trial. He went out not knowing where
he was going. This is a man who always lived by faith. The Lord
said, leave her, the cow daisy left. Where am I going? I'll leave you. That was it. The scripture says he looked
for a city that hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
So that was certainly a trial, leaving most of his relatives.
And then he had no certain place to dwell. Like Isaac and Jacob,
he dwelt in tents. He was a pilgrim. He was a stranger
in this world. The Scripture says he dwelt in
tents with Isaac and with Jacob. And then, you know, you remember
the difficulty, the trial that he had with his herdsmen, had
with the herdsmen of Lot. And so there had to be a separation,
and that was a great trial to Abraham, because here is Lot,
whom he loved, and Lot came out of the Chaldees with him, and
Abraham is his uncle, and he is instructing him in the Word
of God, and he was certainly They mentored to Lot, and yet
when there was a skirmish division that arose between their herdsmen,
Abraham saw that it's necessary that Lot and his herdsmen go
their separate ways. And it was also a trial when
he saw the foolish decision that Lot made. He chose the fertile
plains of Jordan. And that included the city of
Sodom. And he went towards Sodom. That
was a trial for Abraham. Then the battle of the kings.
And we've studied that and of course then Lot became, he became
a captive of these kings along with a lot of other folks from
Sodom and they took a lot of possessions, the property and
the wealth of Sodom. And so Abraham, that's a trial
for him. So he gets together 318 of his
servants who are trained in hand-to-hand combat And he goes forth and he rescues
Lot and all of his possessions, and he rescues all the rest of
the people that were taken captive. And then there's another trial
shortly after that when the king of Sodom and undoubtedly other
kings as well said, we're going to reward you. We'll just give
you these lavish riches. You'll be a tremendous wealthy
man. And he said, I don't want anything
that you've got. It's a man who believed the Lord
would provide for him. And of course, there was earlier
the trial with the king of Egypt, later with Abimelech, and that
was over Sarah. And they wanted to have her as
one of their wives or part of their harem. That wasn't to be, and of course
Abraham, his faith was tested then, and he didn't do so well
because he didn't say anything about Sarah being his wife. He
said, she's my sister. That happened, and then there's
Ishmael's birth when Sarah told him, said, listen, we're not
gonna have this promise, see? It's not going to happen. So
here's my Egyptian maid, Hagar. Take her, go in under her, have
a son by her. It's okay, honey, take her. And Abraham did, and then Ishmael
was born, and several years go by, and then, then God does give
to Abraham and Sarah a promised seed, Isaac. And things went
well for a little bit, but when Isaac was about three years old,
Ishmael began to mock him. A division arose, and Sarah stood
up for her son and said, listen, this isn't right, honey. You've
got to cast out the bondwoman and her son. And that was very
heartbreaking to Abraham because that's his own son there. Yes,
it was with Hagar. But still, that's his flesh and
blood. And that was very hard for him
to do and he had to separate from Ishmael He took Hagar and
Ishmael out and gave them some food, gave them some water, and
he had to leave them. So his life is full of difficulties,
full of trials, as is yours. Now, they're not the same trials
that Abraham had. But nevertheless, they are to
you just as severe, just as difficult, burdens just as heavy, and you've had to deal with a
lot of trials and temptations in your life. There's no question
about that. They come one right after another.
And sometimes they come in, well, clusters. Troubles on top of troubles. And we're all acquainted with
troubles, with trials, which are also called temptations. These are ordinary happenings
to everyone in the entire world. Now this is what the Lord says
through the inspired pen of the Apostle Paul to the people at
the church of Corinth. And they had a lot of difficulties
in their church, lots of trials. But here's what he said, there
hath no temptation taken you, but such as is common to man. Just common trials. Then he says,
but God is faithful. Aren't you thankful? God is faithful,
who will not suffer you to be tempted above your able. but will with the temptation
also make a way of escape that ye may be able to bear it." These afflictions, these testings,
these temptations, these are things that are disagreeable
to us. Anything that is disagreeable
to us is a temptation. But they're common to believers
everywhere. And we don't expect to be free
in this world from the common trials of all men, but we do
believe that God has promised to us He will give us assistance,
He will give us grace, and He will give us strength to endure. Now you may be tempted above
your strength. But you will not be tempted above
God's strength. Isn't that good to know? Say,
I'm weak. I know you are. Hey, we all are. Who is our strength? Our Lord. Our Lord. Now, when it says here
that God did tempt Abraham, we know what the word tempt means,
but I want to kind of define it for you again so you'll know
for sure what it means. Of course, it means to test,
to prove, and it's to, in a negative sense, it's to attempt to get
a person to fall. Well, that's not how or the reason
God tempts us. He tempts us to test us. To test us. Not that He doesn't
already know what the results of the test will be. He already
knows. He already knew what the results
would be of the test of Abraham. The results of the test being
perfectly well known to God, who knows all things, the results
were, for Abraham's benefit, he'll find out he does believe
God. God has given me strength. He'll
find out that the Lord is his power, the Lord is his strength,
the Lord is the one who sustains him. And another one who's going
to learn something about the faithfulness of God and the necessity
of faith is Isaac. Isaac is going to be made to
realize the goodness of God. Have you ever thought about Isaac
being probably 17 years old? It's what the Jews say. And I
suppose that's correct. Have you ever thought about Isaac
as a 17 year old lad? Young man, here's his dad, well
over 100 years of age now. Isaac could have overpowered
his father, but he willingly, he willingly gets up on the altar. Abraham wasn't able to lift him
and put him up there. Abraham puts, he builds the altar,
he puts the wood on, and he says to Isaac, get up on top of that
wood. And Isaac did. He did. And in that, Isaac is a picture
of our Lord Jesus, the willing sacrifice to God. You see here,
for the very first time, we know that it is going to be a person,
a person who is going to be the sacrifice offered to God. And Isaac is a picture of our
Lord Jesus that is at the beginning. Later, Isaac is a picture of
every believer for whom a substitute was found in our Lord Jesus Christ. So, we know what it means to
be tempted. And as I've been studying this
for the last week, I've come to this conclusion. There are
three sources of temptations. Basically, there are three sources
of temptations. There are diabolical temptations. That is, those that come from
Satan. Of course, he entices us. He
lures us to fall. He wants to incite in us rebellion,
lack of faith, or unbelief. That's his goal. So there are
diabolical temptations. Number two, worldly temptations. Testings from this world, which
includes all human sources of temptation, including our own
sinful nature. Again, with the intention being
that we fall. There are those in this world
who would present to us various circumstances which are appealing
to the flesh to excite our lusts and to lead the fallen nature
to do things that we will later regret. These temptations from
the world include its riches, its treasures, and its pleasures. But there's another source of
temptations besides diabolical and worldly, and that's divine
temptations, which is what we have here in Genesis chapter
22, when the Lord puts us in circumstances that are disagreeable
to our Adamic nature. when He is pleased to afflict
us in some way. There's no question about it.
The greatest trial comes from the hand of God Himself. Behold Job. All of those things happened
to Job. Finally, the deaths of all ten of his children. He's
lost everything and then he lost everybody. And yet, in all of that, he worshipped
the Lord. And he didn't blame it on the
devil. He didn't blame it on Satan. He said it's the Lord. It's the Lord who gave. It's
the Lord who took away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
And in all this, Job worshiped. I say the highest character of
trial comes directly from the Lord. Now let me work on these
three. First of all, diabolical temptations. In Matthew chapter
4, Our Lord Jesus, He submits as
the God-man to these vicious temptations of Satan. He has just been baptized in
Matthew chapter 3 by John the Baptist. The Father said, this
is my beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased. He has God the
Father's approval. If He's going to be our Savior,
if He's going to represent us, if He's going to be our substitute,
He must have God's approval. He does. He's the Son of God.
But something else is also necessary. If He is going to go to the cross
of Calvary, and as the perfect man, suffer, bleed, and die for
us that God might be just and the justifier of all who believe
on the Lord Jesus, He's got to deal with the enemy of our souls
face to face. He's got to be almighty. He's
got to be almighty and yet, He's got to be a real man who is really
being tempted. The Scripture says He was tempted
in all points like as we are, yet without sin. That's a vital part of that verse
too. And so in Matthew chapter 4,
Satan tempts Him. Will the Savior fall? Will He succumb to these words of the evil one? And will He distrust His Father? Will He fail to believe God? If He fails as a man, He can't
be the Savior. I know that's true. If He can't
deal with this cruel serpent that none of us can deal with,
Eve couldn't deal with Him. He seduced her through His subtlety. This man Christ Jesus has got
to be able to handle the devil. Does he? Yes. Yes. He handled him then at the very
beginning of his public ministry. His public ministry begins immediately
after that. And he's going to defeat him
again at the end of his public ministry when he goes to the
cross of Calvary and he crushes the head of the serpent. When he bruises his head, when
he takes him captive, now is the prince of this world
cast out. John chapter 12. He cast him
out. Read again Revelation chapter
12. There's war. And Michael, that man who stands
before God, Christ our Savior, he defeated this evil one. Satan is pure evil. Nothing but
evil. Nothing but maliciousness. He's the accuser of the brethren.
And our Lord Jesus defeated him. at the cross. Satan's temptation to our Lord
was not to believe the Father. Let me tell you something. This
is what he goes after when it comes to the people of God. He's
after your faith. That's what the Lord Jesus said
to Simon Peter. Simon, Satan has desired to have
you to sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you. You have
an advocate. You have an intercessor. I have
prayed for you. Well, what's this all about?
That your faith failed not. That your faith failed not. That's what he wants to do to
all of us. He goes after our faith. To doubt God's Word and
God's promises. That's exactly what He did to
Eve. Well, half God said? Half God
said? Put a question mark on what God
has said. And if you believe that, He's
already got you hooked. Now, if you're one of God's people,
He can't cause you to fall from grace, of course. But at that
instant, you've failed. You've given in to His temptation. Our Lord Jesus is the one who
always succeeds against the enemy. And so we read in the book of
Ephesians, He led captivity captive. by His death upon the cross of
Calvary. The writer of Hebrews, turn over
to Hebrews chapter 2. Let me just show you this real quick.
Hebrews chapter 2 and look at verse 17. Hebrews chapter 2 verse 17. Wherefore in all things it behooved
him, it bound him, it obligated him as one who even owes a debt. That's the meaning. It behooved
him to be made like unto you and me. Just like us. that he might be a merciful and
faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the
sins of the people by his death. Now look at verse 18. For in
that he himself hath suffered, being tempted." Being tempted. That's part of
his humiliation. being tempted while he's in this
world. He had already purposed that
Satan would tempt him. And he submitted to that. This
is the one who defied our Lord Jesus, that is the Son of God, very quickly after he was created,
after Lucifer was created. And here our Lord in this world,
He submits to being tempted by this vile creature called the
devil or Satan. He suffered being tempted. And
here's one of the reasons. So that he would be able to succor
them that are tempted. You know, you're better off,
you'll be a better helper to people in something they're going
through if you've gone through it before, right? We all know
that. Well, our Lord Jesus is in a
perfect position to help us in time of temptation because He's
been there. He's been there. Of course, Satan, he has all
kinds of fiery darts that he throws at us. They come at us suddenly, don't
they? Unexpectedly. and He can send them in great
clusters. The Bible calls them fiery darts
because they do enflame the mind, they enflame the will. They excite us to sin. That's why we're called upon
to use the shield of faith. What does faith do? Faith runs
to Christ. That's what faith is. Faith runs
to the blood of the Lord Jesus. Let me tell you something. Satan
will chase you. He'll chase you. So I'm going
to resort to the church. He'll chase you in the church.
He'll take a seat right beside you. So I'm going to do this. I'm
going to do that. Go ahead. He'll chase you. He's with you
all the way. There's only one place he won't go. To the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's not going to go with you
to the Savior. That's where we've got to go.
We've got to flee to Christ. And I've got to give you this,
and I probably won't finish this message tonight. Let me tell
you Satan's biggest temptation. Here's his biggest temptation.
to those of us who profess to be believers, his biggest temptation,
that which most people don't give any thought to whatsoever,
he tempts us into thinking that in one way or another, our legal
obedience puts us in good standing with God, and thus he has introduced
into our minds This idea of salvation by works, that's the most dangerous
temptation of all. And many people who've made professions
of faith, they have fallen before this temptation. They're working. They're laboring. I'm trying
to live the Christian life because if I don't live the Christian
life, God won't be pleased with me. He'll be more pleased with
me. He'll look more favorably upon me if I obey Him and if
I live for Him. Well, we do want to obey Him.
Don't make any mistake about that. I don't want you to understand
me. We do seek to please our Lord.
but nothing you do affects your acceptance with God. Because
your acceptance with God is fully based on who your Savior is and
what He did for you. That is the bottom line. And Satan, he's so sneaky. And
he'll get you to thinking about your works. You say, well, I know I'm a Christian
because I do this. I know I'm a Christian because
I do that. You have fallen to that temptation. See, here's what He wants to
do. Lead you away from Christ Jesus, His blood and righteousness
and salvation by grace. And if He can do that to you,
He'll ruin you. He'll ruin you. You see, God's acceptance of
you and me by grace through the obedience unto death of our Lord
Jesus, it certainly affects our behavior in this world. There's
no question about that. But our behavior in this world,
our obedience unto the Lord, in no way affects our acceptance
with our God. He wants you to call into question
the Word of God. He wants you to doubt the Lord.
He was so successful with Eve. And then there's worldly temptations. The world entices us. It tempts us. It lures us to
indulge in the pleasures that it offers us. Take our minds
and our intentions off spiritual things, off of Christ our Savior,
off His bloodiest sacrifice. Think about Moses. The Scripture
says in Hebrews 11, By faith Moses, when he was come to years,
that is, when he was a nobleman in Pharaoh's court, When he came
to great knowledge, when he had all the wisdom of Egypt, being
about 40 years old, he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's
daughter. What if he hadn't refused? This is a temptation for Moses.
He would have had everything the natural man could have wished
for. He'd had wealth, prestige, he'd
had power, and maybe, some people say, since Pharaoh apparently
had no son, that Pharaoh may have made his daughter's adopted
son Moses to be Pharaoh when that Pharaoh died. He may have designated the kingdom
of Egypt to then belong to Moses. And then Moses would have been
worshipped as a god. Boy, that's quite a temptation
there. You'll have all the money you
want. You'll have all the land you want. You'll have all the
power you want. You'll have all the prestige
you want. You can go out and conquer other nations. Look how
great you will be. He dismissed it all. I don't
want any of it. I don't want any of it! He chose rather to suffer affliction
with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for
a season. He said, I'm sticking with the
Lord's people. Why did He do that? Because the
Egyptians were idolaters. And these, the seed of Abraham
and Isaac and Jacob, they worshipped the true God. He said, these
are my people over here. Remember this. The Lord knoweth
how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve
the unjust under the day of judgment. And then thirdly, divine temptations. Oh, while the temptations of
Satan and the temptations from the world induce us to doubt
the Lord, to lean on the arm of the flesh, to look to our
obedience rather than to the Savior and His obedience for
acceptance with God. Be sure you understand this. This divine temptation was about
testing Abraham's faith. Look, go back to the text. Let me just make a few more comments
here and I'll let you go. When Abraham was ready to put
the knife in Isaac, Verse 11, the angel of the Lord
called unto him out of heaven. This is the Son of God. Abraham,
Abraham. He said, here am I. And the Son
of God said, lay not thine hand upon the land. Don't do him anything
to him, for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast
not withheld thy Son, thine only Son, from me. Now I know, now
I said a while ago, the Lord already knew. Because He's the
one that gave Abraham faith to begin with. Faith's the gift
of God. Not all men have faith. For by
grace you say through faith, and that not of yourselves. It's the gift of God. Abraham
was gifted by God with faith to believe Him and to look forward
to the day of the Son of God coming into this world who would
give His life a ransom for men like Abraham. Abraham's had all of these tests,
but this is the greatest one of all. Take Isaac to a mountain. You dads, take your son, your only son,
your darling son. We're not talking about Ishmael.
We're talking about Isaac. The one God promised to give
you. The one that God said, in Isaac
shall thy seed be called. You take your darling, darling
son, you love him with all your heart, I know you do. You take
him to a mountain that I'm going to tell you about, and you offer
him as a burnt offering to me. You put him up on some wood. You know what a burnt offering
is. A burnt offering was an offering, nothing was left. It wasn't one
of those offerings where, well, part of it is reserved. No, this
is burn it totally! That's what God told Abraham
to do with Isaac. This is a great test. I said, Isaac's a picture of
our Lord Jesus. Isaac was released, our Lord
Jesus. He climbed up on that altar willingly and said, let the fire fall on
me. And the vengeance of God fell
on the Savior. Vengeance that would consume
any mere mortal but the God-man. He suffered under all of it,
till finally there was no more fire. He consumed the fire for
his people. Oh, this was a test for Abraham. And you know what it says in
Hebrews 11? He considered this whole thing,
There's an interesting word there. Would you mind taking the time
just to go back to Hebrews or go to the book of Hebrews chapter
11? We were in Hebrews 2 earlier. Now look at Hebrews 11. Hebrews 11, look at 17. Hebrews 11, 17. By faith Abraham, when he was
tried, offered up Isaac. And he that had received the
promises offered up his only begotten son. And that puts us
right in mind of our Lord Jesus. God gave his only begotten son. Look at the next verse, verse
18. Of whom it was said that in Isaac shall thy seed be called. And then verse 19, the first
word is accounting. A very interesting word and a
complex word. It means he deliberated about
this. The word is sometimes translated
as to think. He rolled this over in his mind,
what he had been commanded to do. What did he account? After deliberation,
what did he come up with? That God was able to raise him
up. Even from the dead. From whence also He received
him in picture. In Abraham's mind, he accounted
this whole thing. He deliberated. I'm sure prayed
about it. It's the Lord's will. The Lord
told me to do it. And I'm going to do it. Because
I know that the God I serve is the God of life. And he made
me a promise. In Isaac shall your seed be called. And so when I kill him, God's
able to raise him up. He just went through it in his
own mind, in his own heart. Isaac was as good as gone. Yes, he is going through it. He wasn't going to hold back.
His conclusion after weighing this matter was that God who
gave Isaac to him in the first place would keep His Word. In other words, he believed God. I'm telling you that these temptations,
it's what it's about. It's about believing God. The
Apostle Paul in 1 Thessalonians 3, I said the last reference. Excuse me. Just one more reference
please. Look at 1 Thessalonians chapter
3. Paul was anxious to hear how
the Thessalonians were doing. Were they about being faithful
to the Lord? Believing the Gospel? Continuation? Look at verse 1 of chapter 3. Wherefore, when we could no longer
forbear, I just couldn't wait any longer. I had to hear something
from you. We thought it good to be left at Athens alone. We
sent Timothy, our brother, and minister of God, our fellow laborer
in the gospel of Christ, to establish you, to comfort you concerning
your faith. that no man should be moved by
these afflictions. Don't be moved by temptations. Don't be moved by afflictions.
Don't be moved by trials. They're so heavy. How can I stand? You stand in Christ Jesus. That's
who you stand in. Lord, I can't bear up under this.
I know you can't. I'm going to bear you up. Look
to your Savior. that no man should be moved or
distressed or disheartened by these afflictions for yourselves.
Know that we're appointed thereunto. Don't forget. Those troubles
come to you, those trials, those temptations, whether they're
diabolical or worldly or divine, they're appointed for you. For
verily, verse 4, when we were with you, we told you before
that we should suffer tribulation. Life's not going to be easy.
Well, I've suffered this heartache. I've suffered this. I've suffered
that. You and everybody else too. Right? Everybody. And I would never make light
of sorrow or anything like that. Grief is real. Sadness is real. Disease is real. Sickness is
real. Death is real. There's no question
about it. But God, our Father, is the one
who's appointed these things. Now look at verse 5. Well, it
said, even as it came to pass, ye know, verse 5, for this cause
when I could no longer forbear, I sent to know your faith, lest
by some means the tempter have tempted you, and our labor was
in vain. He's after your faith, folks. The world's after your faith.
And God is going to test your faith. He tests all faith, that
true faith and false faith. You claim to believe the Lord
Jesus, God's gonna put you to the test. I have no doubt about
that, because it says so in the Word of God. We sure need the Lord's strength,
don't we? And we have it. That's the thing. We have it.
He hasn't left us alone to fend for ourselves. Well, you're on
your own now. You're never on your own. We
stand in Christ. And when you can't stand any
longer, He's holding you up. And He always will. Never forsake
you. Well, we'll pick up here and
keep on going next Wednesday, Lord willing. Let's pray. Lord,
thank you for your grace that is continual. Thank you for your
faithfulness. And forgive us when we buckle
under temptation, whatever the source, whether it's diabolical
or worldly or divine temptation. Lord, you know that there's nothing
to us, we're just dust. And we don't have any life without
You. We don't have any grace except
You give it to us. And we can't possibly stand unless
You hold us up and keep us focused on our mighty Savior, the Son
of God, the Son of Man. May these words spoken tonight
be of help to your people and admonish all of us. Keep on looking
to Jesus, the Author and the Finisher of our faith. In His
name and for His sake, I ask these things. Amen.