That was, in fact, the first
song I wrote for you. And it is my prayer, and I'm
confident it is your prayer, that God will give us grace all
the days of our lives to honor Him. I suppose I hear those words
more often from you men as you lead us back in the office and
here in the congregation in prayer, God, help us to honor you. Help us to live so as to honor
you. Help us to magnify your name, to honor you. If you were to ask how to best
secure that, how to best secure the spiritual well-being of God's
saints, how best to promote a believer's spiritual growth in the grace
and knowledge of our Lord Jesus, what would you recommend? What would you recommend? I suspect
you might say, put him in some place where he will be unmolested
by the influence of the world and always surrounded by other
believers. Arrange for the brother or sister
to have as few worldly distractions as possible, as few worldly cares
as you can, as few worldly temptations as possible. Encourage the child
of God to spend much time reading his Bible on his knees in prayer
before God, meditating on spiritual things. Encourage him to exercise
a life of strict discipline. and abstain from everything that
might gratify his physical body or his carnal appetite after
things in this world. Pursue the same line of thought
a little further. If I were to ask you the best way to prepare
a man for the blessed work of preaching the gospel, to prepare
a man to be a pastor or a missionary, what would you suggest? Send
him away to Bible college. Send him away to seminary. Give
him a good education. Teach him Hebrew and Greek. Teach
him to study theology. Supply him with good books. Surround
him with other aspiring preachers with whom he can meditate and
pray and study the Bible and discuss doctrine and religious
issues. Keep him as much as possible
away from worldly people, people that would corrupt his mind.
That's been the practice of religious people throughout history. And
it is appealing to men. It seems very reasonable. But if you care to look at history,
you'll discover that convents and monasteries have been more
often than not dens of indescribable iniquity where men and women
were secluded from the world and kept from enticing things
and worldly amusements and worldly cares. And following their example,
Protestant and Baptist Bible colleges and seminaries have
made little improvement. You can be sure of this fact.
In all things spiritual, this is fact. God's ways are not our
ways. And His ways are always better.
His ways are always better. Now, I have recited in recent
weeks words from John Newton that are not commonly known in
our day. Newton wrote, Amazing Grace,
How Sweet the Sound. These words need to be sung as
often. I ask the Lord that I might grow
in faith and love and every grace. Might more of his salvation know
and seek more earnestly his face. "'Twas He who taught me thus
to pray, and He, I trust, has answered prayer, but it has been
in such a way as almost drove me to despair. I hoped that in
some favored hour at once He'd answer my request, and by His
law's constraining power, subdue my sins and give me rest. Instead
of this, He made me feel the hidden evils
of my heart. He let the angry powers of hell
assault my soul in every part and more. With his own hand he
seemed intent to aggravate my woe, crossed all the fair designs
I schemed, blasted my gourds and laid me low. Lord, why is
this? I trembling cried. Will thou
pursue thy worm to death? Tis in this way, the Lord replied,
I answer prayer for grace and faith. These inward trials I
employ. These inward trials I employ
from self and pride to set thee free and break thy schemes of
earthly joy. that thou may seek thine all
in me. Turn with me to James chapter
1. With that as a background, I
want us to read James 1 verses 12 through 16. The title of my
message tonight is A Blessing, an Error, and a Warning. A Blessing,
an Error, and a Warning. If we belong to Christ, Satan
desires to have us, that he may sift us as wheat as he did Peter. But the Lord Jesus prays for
us and thereby keeps us secure in his grace. May God the Spirit
make his word in this place effectual to our hearts by the blessing
of his grace for Christ's sake. Satan casts his fiery darts at
our souls, assails us at every point knowing every kink in our
armor, knowing every weakness of our nature, the fiend of hell
assaults our souls, relentlessly seeking to destroy us. But by
the grace of God, believers endure temptations, overcome temptations,
and are blessed by temptations. By the grace of God, believers
endure temptations, overcome temptations, and are blessed
by temptations. And I'm talking specifically
now about the inward trials with which we struggle. James chapter
1 verse 12. Blessed is the man that endureth
temptation. For when he is tried, when he
is proved, He shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord
hath promised to them that love him. That no man say when he
is tempted, I am tempted of God. For God cannot be tempted with
evil, neither tempteth he any man. But every man is tempted
when he's drawn away of his own lust and enticed. These inward struggles, these
vile corruptions that erupt in us come from inside us, Merle. They come from inside us, not from what we see, not from
what we hear from others, not from what we experience out there
in the world. They come from inside us. Every
man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed. Then lust, when it is conceded,
it bringeth forth sin, and sin, when it is finished, bringeth
forth death. Do not err, my beloved brethren. All right, here's the first thing,
and this is the bulk of the message. Here is a great blessing of grace,
verse 12. Blessed is the man that endureth
temptation. Now look back to verse 2 in this
same chapter and you'll read that James tells us to count
it all joy when you fall into divers temptations. The word
divers is many or various kinds of or many different kinds of
temptations. Count it all joy when you fall
into many different kinds of temptations. And in this place,
in verse 2, it seems obvious James is telling us that God
tries and proves us as he tried and proved Abraham when he tries
and proves our faith in Christ by so many different trials in
so many different ways. And when he does, we ought to
rejoice. Those trials are tokens of God's goodness upon us. How
God tempted Abraham when he required him to sacrifice Isaac, his son,
on Mount Moriah. The Lord did tempt Abraham. The word means the Lord tried
him. The Lord proved to him with a
great painful providential circumstance, a great trial of faith, how the
Lord proved Jephthah, his servant, when Jephthah returned after
making his vow to God and his daughter came rushing out of
the house. And now Jephthah is obliged to keep his oath to God
and offer that which comes first out of his house unto the Lord.
How greatly Moses' faith was tried when this man slew the
Egyptian and fled from Pharaoh and had to stay in hiding year
after year after year after year. Forty years long he hid in Midian. How greatly the Lord God tempted
and proved his servant Job when he turned Satan loose on Job.
God did it. It was not Satan who came and
said, have you considered your servant Job? It was God who said
to Satan, have you considered my servant Job? God instigated
the whole thing. The Lord tempted and tried and
proved Job in his body, of his family, in his goods, in his
health, in his prosperity. He proved him with trial after
trial after trial. And James says, my brethren,
count it all joy when you fall into divers temptations. And
that's what he's talking about. He's talking about just those
very things. But here in verse 12, it's equally
obvious that James is talking about something else. He's talking
about temptations of another kind. He's not talking about
the temptations that arise in God's providence. Affliction
and pain and suffering. Sickness, bereavement, death. No, no. Here, James is talking
about believers enduring the assaults of Satan upon our souls. Temptations that come upon us
because of what's in us. Because of the corruption, the
evil of our own hearts. The evil by which the fiend of
hell attempts to destroy us. You're familiar with some examples.
David and Uriah. Peter being sifted as wheat. The apostle Paul, when
he writes about a messenger, Satan Scent of God to buffet
him in the face a messenger to beat him down a messenger Always
causing him difficulty And now watch what the Spirit of God
tells us about these temptations He doesn't say count it all joy
when you fall into these temptations. Oh, no, no, no There's nothing
sadder nothing more grievous to our hearts than falling into
these temptations But in this place, God the Holy Spirit says,
blessed is the man that endureth temptation. Blessed is the man, in spite
of all the hell that's in him, who still lives for God. Blessed
is the man, in spite of all the evil that is, who still believes
God. Blessed is the man who, in spite
of all these relentless assaults of hell rising up from within,
continues in the grace of our God. O Spirit of God, give us
grace to see the blessedness of all Satan's devices by the
grace of our God and through Christ our Savior. We are engaged,
my brothers and sisters, as believers in what John Bunyan called the
holy war. We're engaged in a warfare in
our souls with the world, the flesh, and the devil. But the
blessedness of victory is indescribable. War is brutal. War is ugly. There's no way to
make it look good. War is painful. Doesn't matter
what war you consider. I have hanging in my office back
here, Brother Marvin Stonerker's two first paintings that he did,
and they're of the Battle of Franklin, Civil War, and you
look closely at them, and none of you ladies would want them
hanging in your living room. They're just not the kind of painting
you want. They're pictures of a brutal, bloody battle. in which men were maimed, being
wounded, and were permanently maimed. Men were slaughtered.
The battle is horrible. The battle is ugly. That's what
warfare is. It's never pretty. But oh, oh,
the blessedness of victory. We've endured the assaults of
hell upon our souls in this body of flesh. And when our endurance
of these things is over, we shall enjoy the golden crown of life
eternal with Christ our Lord. That, the Spirit of God here
tells us, makes the very enduring of the temptations, the very
warfare itself, a matter of blessedness. Perhaps you think, well, Brother
Don, how's it possible for anyone engaged in such a warfare with
hell, anyone enduring temptations like this to look upon those
things and say, this is blessed? How could you look upon things
like David's fall, like Peter's denial, like Paul's thorn in
the flesh and say, this is blessed? I'm glad you asked. Let me give
you a few answers. This is a blessed warfare. Because
Satan's furious rage upon the child of God and his assaults
are against us for just one reason. Because we are God's children. His brutal assaults arise only
for one reason. We are God's children. Christ's
seed in this world. Come back to Genesis chapter
3. Genesis chapter 3, verse 15. I want you to read for yourself
again what God says about this. The devil's bitterness against
Christ and his seed, Christ and his church, is made manifest
here by God's order and God's decree. The Lord said to the
serpent, there, Genesis 3, 15, I will put enmity between thee
and the woman, between thy seed and her seed. Satan's malice
then against us is malice against Christ because we're his seed. We're his seed because we belong
to Christ. Let me see if I can illustrate
it for you in a very simple way. When our daughter Faith was in
the second grade, She had been going to school. Shelby was her
teacher in kindergarten and preschool for three years, and she just
loved it. She went to first grade, and she just loved it. She got
into second grade. About halfway through the school
year, she got to not wanting to go to school. I mean, she
just didn't want to go to school. She began to hate it. She just,
she began to hate it. And I finally started trying
to figure out what was going on, and went to school, spoke
to the principal, and found out this second grade teacher had
just been Malicious to that child. I mean just just doing everything
she could every time she got a chance to humiliate the child
and Principal called her in we chatted for a little bit try
to find out get the bottom of things see what was going on Of course,
I I had enough sense to know that you go to school You better
see to it something happens. And so before I left I was determined
she won't go back to that classroom no matter what but the teacher
finally acknowledged this now I didn't know her I didn't know
where she lived, didn't know where she came from, I didn't
know her name, that's all I knew. And she said, she said, well I have
to tell you, Shelby was sitting there, I've acted like this because
I know you don't approve of my lifestyle. I said, what? You remember that? I know you
do. What? Don't approve of your lifestyle?
What's your lifestyle? I didn't have a clue what her
lifestyle was. She was shacked up with some fella and she knew
I was a preacher, so she figured I knew about it and I didn't
prove her lifestyle. I didn't have a clue about it. I said,
honey, frankly, I don't care how you live. I just expect you
to be a good teacher. I'm not interested in your lifestyle,
but just because of my daughter's relationship to me and the woman's
imagined enmity that I might have for her, she takes that
on a seven-year-old child. What foolishness. Thus it is
with Satan and God's people. Satan's rage against God's elect
is just the token of God's goodness to us that we are his. His rage
is against the children of God. Let me give you another reason
for counting the endurance of these temptations blessed. The
outcome is a matter of absolute certainty. The end of the conflict
is sure. Satan often appears to prevail. I wish I could tell you otherwise,
but he usually appears to prevail in my own experience. We see how he appeared to prevail
against David. how he appeared for a while to
prevail against Peter, how he appeared to prevail against Paul
with a stone in the flesh. But I don't have to guess about
it. He usually appears to prevail, in my experience, usually. But in spite of that, the outcome's
a matter of certainty. Turn to Revelation chapter 7. Billy, listen to your pastor
for a minute, will you? In all my weakness, in the teeth
of all my sin, acknowledging all the corruption of this depraved
heart, I believe Christ. I trust the Son of God, my only
hope before God. my only righteousness, my only
redemption, my only rock, my only salvation. Do you? Have you any other hope? Then
I tell you, my brother, and I tell you, my sister, though it appears
that Satan prevails over you hour after hour, day after day,
week after week, month after month, year after year, and you're
more often in darkness than in light. Believing the Son of God,
the matter of your outcome, is a matter of certainty. Look in
Revelation chapter 7 and understand that the God of peace shall brew
Satan under your feet shortly. Revelation 7 verse 9. After these
things I beheld and lo a great multitude, which no man could
number, of all nations and kindreds and people and tongues stood
before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white
robes and palms in their hands. That is, they're clothed with
white robes of righteousness and palms of victory, and cried
with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God, which sitteth upon
the throne. and unto the Lamb. And all the
angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders,
and the four beasts, and fell before the throne on their faces,
and worshipped God, saying, Amen. Blessing, and glory, and wisdom,
and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might be unto
our God for ever and ever. Amen. And one of the elders answered,
saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white? And
which came they? And I said unto him, Sir, thou
knowest. And he said unto me, These are
they which came out of great tribulation and have washed their
robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. One day
soon, our temptation day will be over. While we live here, It's deeply distressing. Our
Savior found it so. So must we. But Satan's leash
is not very long. He knoweth he hath but a short
time. I may be cast into the prison
for a time, but if I'm Christ, he can't hold me very long. Fear
none of these things, the Savior says, which thou shalt suffer. Behold, the devil shall cast
some of you into prison, that you may be tried, and you shall
have tribulation ten days. Be thou faithful unto death,
and I will give thee the crown of life." That's exactly what
James tells us here. Blessed is the man that endureth
temptation, for when he is tried, when his trying days are over,
when he's been proved, when it had been proved, he shall receive
the crown of life. Here's something else. The consciousness
that victory assured, that every temptation, when sanctified by
God's grace, leads to good and not to evil, makes enduring the
temptation a blessed thing. The old serpent, the devil, the
foe of Christ and of our souls He's in a rage, I repeat, because
he knows he has but a short time. He knows his end is soon to be
upon him. And he knows that he must be
publicly vanquished. Publicly vanquished. He who,
before the world was, Brother Allen read it, I think, last
week in Revelation 12, week before last in Revelation 12. He speaks
of that warfare. Our mighty Michael, the Lord
Jesus, and the host of heavenly angels, vanquished Satan. cast
him out. He vanquished Satan and cast
him out. And that one who our Savior cast out was in great
humiliation because of that. But that's no humiliation at
all compared to this. Soon he shall be vanquished beneath
the feet of this worm named Jacob. Publicly, our God shall at last
crush the serpent's head under our feet and give us victory
over him before wandering worlds. The anticipation of such victory
makes this old warrior's heart rejoice even in the midst of
the raging battle. Then oh how blessed in the midst
of our darkest temptations to be enabled by God's grace to
lift our eyes to heaven and behold our great high priest, our mighty
advocate, our sovereign king, the Lord Jesus, the man of war,
the captain of our salvation, who is on our side, watching
over us, ruling all things for us, interceding on our behalf. Beholding him while Satan roars,
the Lord Jesus quietens. While Satan accuses, the Savior
rebukes him. While the devil shoots his darts,
Christ stands forth as our shield and our defense. Oh, how Peter, how Peter must have stood in
awe with joy that couldn't possibly
be expressed by words or even by facial expression. Joy deep
in his soul that more humbled and broke him than lifted him
when he saw the Lord Jesus coming to him in Galilee like he promised
he would. An angel told those women at
the tomb, go tell my disciples. Go tell my disciples I'll meet
them in Galilee. Like I said, I would. And be
sure you tell Peter. And there stands Peter by the
Galilee Sea. And here comes the Lord Jesus
coming to Peter. Peter, who left his presence
weeping, weeping in utter despair, now sees the Savior coming, coming
in omnipotent, faithful grace. And the Lord Jesus says, Simon,
lovest thou me? And he asked it not to convince
him, but to convince Simon. To make Simon know, yes, in spite
of all this, Lord, you know all things. You know that I love
thee. Now hear me, children of God.
Our Lord Jesus said to Peter, On that night when he announced
his certain denial, the cock shall not crow till
thou hast denied me three times. And I tell you, Mark Henson,
the sun will not rise tomorrow morning till in one way or another
you've denied the Savior three times. That's just fact. I know it and
you know it. Hear the Savior's next word.
Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also
in me. In the teeth of your temptations. Rejoice and believe in God. Blessed is the man that endureth
temptation. Let me say one more thing about
this. We are blessed in enduring temptation even when Satan seems
to gain the advantage over us. If by our temptations we are
made more fully to discover that we're nothing and Christ is everything. Paul knew something about that.
He said, most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities
that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Why is this? I trembling cried. Will thou pursue thy worm to
death? Tis in this way, the Lord replied,
I answer prayer for grace and faith. These inward trials I
employ from self and pride to set thee free and break thy schemes
of earthly joy that thou may seek thine all in me. Let me
give you two more things very briefly. This passage of scripture shows us
a very common error. Verses 13, 14, and 15. It's very
common for men and women to excuse their sinful deeds and even justify
them by blaming their evil deeds on God's sovereignty. And James
addresses that horrible evil. Let no man say when he's tempted,
I'm tempted of God. Well, God purposed this. God
predestined this. There's no question. God's predestination
includes all things. But God cannot be tempted with
evil, neither tempteth he any man. But every man is tempted
when he's drawn away of his own lust and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived,
it bringeth forth sin, and sin when it's finished bringeth forth
death. Here James is addressing people who in the pretense of faith
claim to believe Christ, but assume no responsibility for
their corrupt hearts or their corrupt behavior. And they wind
up in hell. They wind up in hell. They say,
well, I've done this, but here's the reason. Here's the reason.
God's people, Bobby Estes, confess their sin. And they don't excuse
it. They don't find an excuse for
it. They don't attempt to justify it. Don't attempt to. Bobby and
I were talking about our rearing, or lack of it, when we were youngsters. Both of us raised in houses where
the head of the house was a drunk. And I'll be honest with you,
if I'd been married to my mother, I'd stay drunk all the time. I told her
so one time. That's just fact. That's just fact. I wish you
weren't sober, that's just fact. I don't ever remember seeing
my dad sober after I was a grown man. Don't ever remember seeing
it happen. But that's got nothing to do
with all the evil I did and all the evil that's in me. Nothing
at all. That's my fault. That's my fault. Now you listen to me. You listen
to me. Mamas and Daddys, understand
that. Quit making excuses for your
sons and daughters or for yourselves. What we are And what we do is
our fault and nobody else's. I know that's tough, tough, tough
preaching in this day of religious, philosophical, psychological
voodoo. And that's all it is. Folks try
to make you feel good by blaming somebody else for everything
you do. It's somebody else's fault, not my fault. No, it's
your fault. And every person who knows God acknowledges that. Every person who knows God acknowledges
that. Nathan comes to David and tells
David about this horrible thing. And David, in his self-righteous
indignation, said, show me who that is. I'll kill him. And Nathan
said, you're the man. And David said, I've sinned against
God. I've done wickedly. Against thee
thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight offer
no excuse offer no excuse I've I Laughed but it's not funny
some some Baptist preacher years ago wrote a tract and Wrote it
about Bathsheba's fault The Bathsheba had been out there bathing. Well,
that's I'm kind of bad. My wife does aren't you? Takes
a bath down there If Bathsheba hadn't been out there bathing,
David wouldn't have done anything. David said, I sinned against God. I
sinned against God. Wasn't her fault. Wasn't Uriah's
fault. Wasn't the fault of the children
of Israel. My fault. My fault. I sinned against you. Every believer
acknowledges and confesses his sin. Every believer. And if we confess our sin, He's faithful and just to forgive
us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. But
only those who confess their sin will find the cleansing of
Christ's precious blood. The wages of sin is death. The gift of God is eternal life.
Now, here's the third thing. Here's a very needful warning.
Do not err, my beloved brethren. John Gill rightly declared, to
make God the author of sin, to charge Him with being concerned
in temptation to sin, is a very great error, a fundamental one,
which strikes at the nature and being of God, at the perfection
of His holiness. It is denying Him. It is one
of those damnable errors and heresies which bring upon men
swift destruction. Let us take care then that we
heed this warning. God's saints, like David, like
Job, acknowledge and confess their sin. Those who do, obtain
God's forgiveness, wicked, unbelieving, self-righteous people, while
pretending to confess their sin, while pretending to believe on
the Son of God, always seek a cloak, some kind of a covering, some
kind of an excuse for their sin. Where do you find yourself here?
One who, in the midst of a terrible war, finds great blessedness
believing on the Son of God, confessing your sin, are one
who, in the midst of temptation, when his flesh is exposed by
his deeds, seeks to cover his sin. Oh, may God give you grace
to seek grace in his son, confessing your sin and clinging to him
alone. Amen.