My message today, I have three
texts. The common thread of all of these
verses is the subject of temptation. Temptation. In the New Testament,
the four words tempt, temptation, temptations, and tempted are
all for the most part, from the same Greek word, 46 times. In the few exceptions, the word
that is translated by one of those English words is a word
that is made up of that same Greek word. So basically, all
of these texts of scripture, all of these verses that speak
to us about temptation, temptations, tempt, and being tempted, they
all come from the same word. When the word that is translated
tempt is preceded by the article the, the tempter, of course it
refers to the devil, Satan. He is described by his work,
the tempter. The first time that we read of
him in the Bible, He came to our parents, Adam and Eve, in
the Garden of Eden. He came to them to tempt them
to evil. And he began his temptation by
questioning the word of God. And that's very important to
keep in mind. The word itself means to try,
to test, to prove. That's what this word literally
means. It means to try, to test, or
to prove. I think for most of us, when
we hear the word temptation, we usually associate it with
temptation to evil, solicitation to evil, to wrong. And no doubt
that is the case many times, but not always. Not always is
that true. And I want us to begin this morning
in Matthew chapter 4 and verse 7, an exhortation for us about
tempting the Lord. An exhortation for us against
tempting the Lord. The Lord Jesus Christ quotes
this verse. Verse seven, thou shalt not tempt
the Lord thy God. I want to point out that it was
God the Holy Spirit who led the Lord Jesus Christ after his baptism
into the wilderness to be tempted. Notice that in verse one, then
was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted
of the tempter, the devil. And this is his second of three
temptations that our Lord underwent at that time, three testings.
When he was proved, when he was tested, when he was tried by
Satan, the second trial was to go up into Jerusalem and to be
placed on one of the pinnacles of the temple, very high, be
lifted up very high, and to cast himself down with this promise
from the word of God. He shall bear thee up. He shall
give his angels charge concerning thee, and in their hands they
shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against
a stone. And the Lord Jesus Christ responded
with, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. The temptation,
if it is to sin, it was to presumption. The sin of presumption, presuming
upon God, even though we have His promise, presuming upon God
to put ourselves in the way of temptation, in the way where
we might fall into sin. Thou shalt not tempt the Lord
thy God. Now there are three lessons I
want us to take from this passage. The first is, recognize that
the devil, the tempter, will use scripture when it serves
his purpose. The devil will use the scriptures
when it serves his purpose. The devil, the apostle Paul tells
us, transforms himself into an angel of light. Most people,
when they think about the devil, they think he's down on skid
row, he's in the beer joints, and in the houses of prostitution,
and all of those places where we know evil resides. And no
doubt, his influence is there. But his main work is in religion,
my friends. He transforms Himself into an
angel of light, and when it serves His purpose, He will use the
Word of God, the Scriptures, to try and to test and to tempt
to evil the people of God. Now, our Lord said that would
be presumptuous on His part to do that. The devil used one scripture,
but the Lord Jesus Christ quoted another scripture, which contradicted
the way the devil was applying that word. The scripture doesn't
contradict itself. We know that. But the devil would
take a scripture that would contradict another scripture, and so the
Lord used the word of God to rebuke him. Let me give you an
example. We have this word from the Apostle
Paul in Philippians written to believers, to Christians, but
my God shall supply all your needs according to his riches
in Christ Jesus. Well, we just take that scripture,
his promise to supply all our needs, let's turn in our resignations
tomorrow. Let's quit our jobs, and he's
promised, he's promised to supply all our needs. But you see, the
Apostle Paul also said in another part of the word of God, inspired
by God, that if a man will not work, neither should he eat. The scripture does not contradict
itself. To take that one scripture My
God shall supply all your needs, and to use it not to do our work,
not to apply ourselves, would be in contradiction to another
word from the Lord. In fact, the apostle said it
like this concerning believers, with quietness they work and
eat their own bread. So that's the first thing that
I would mention. Recognize that the devil will
use scripture when it serves his purpose. And number two,
recognize that we must be familiar with the word of God. We must
be familiar with the scripture so we will know if he comes to
us with one scripture, maybe there's more scripture that would
contradict the way he is using that scripture, he would come
to us with a temptation. We must know the scriptures.
We must learn the scriptures. This is the reason it's so important
to read God's word, to study his word, to hear his word. God's given us his word. We need
to avail ourselves, that's our responsibility. He's not going
to bore a hole in a person's head and just pour in the knowledge. But we learn, and we learn little
by little. We learn scripture by scripture. When we are born into the family
of God, we come in as infants. As newborn babes, the scripture
says. And so we must desire the sincere
milk of the word, just like a baby that is born. Immediately desires
nourishment. If the baby is healthy and there's
a good birth of the baby, you see it in the animal kingdom,
you see it among all people. Just as soon as the baby is born. I was reading an article recently
about a baby that was born to a mother who had abused drugs,
who was a drug addict. And so when the baby was born,
they put the baby on some kind of a feeding tube to get the
baby along and take the baby off of the drugs. But the danger
is the baby doesn't learn to nurse, that which is natural. That which is natural to a baby,
if it's not used, it will lose that ability. And the same thing
might be applied in the Christian life. When we're born again of
the spirit of God, we come into his kingdom by birth, we should
desire the sincere milk of the word. And we never outgrow God's
word. I've given the Bible sometimes
to young men, young women, and I've always, if I wrote in the
Bible, tried to put in there, you will never outgrow this book. Usually, young people graduating
from college, you will never outgrow this book. Read the word
of God, because Satan, he will come when it serves his purpose,
quoting the word of God, and we must know the word of God
to to put off the temptation. And number three, recognize that
we have a great high priest who may be touched with the feelings
of our infirmities. Because you see, this one who
in this passage of scripture, who is being tested by Satan,
being tempted by Satan, the Bible says he was in all points tempted
like as we are, yet without sin. Therefore, he is able to succor
us, to help us. We have a great high priest as
believers. We have a priest that we can
go to no matter what time of day it is, no matter what the
temptation is, no matter what the need is. He's always, he's
always there at the Father's right hand. He's not like one
of these priests that's a man-made priest, you know, he has to go
into that little box. That's not the kind of priest
he is at all. He's our great high priest who
may be touched with the feelings of our infirmities. When we're
in trouble, when we are in need, when we are being tested or tempted,
he is able to succor us. Now I want you to turn to another
text. I want you to go to James chapter one, the epistle of James. So the temptation there, if it
is to sin, it is to the sin of presumption. In James chapter one, the apostle
says, and this verse shows us we are to count it all joy. Verse two, my brethren. Now he's
writing to believers, to brothers. Count it all joy when you fall
into divers temptations. Now obviously, this is not temptation
to sin. There's no way that the apostle
is telling God's children, when you fall into temptation to sin,
that you're to count that all joy. As I said, the word temptation,
it means to try. It means to prove, to test. And the psalmist of old said,
many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord deliver
them out of them all. And the apostle Paul, he exhorted
believers that we must, through much tribulation, enter into
the kingdom of God. And this, this, uh, Temptation
here, that we are to count it joy when we fall into, we would
understand more as a tribulation, a time of testing. Count it all
joy when you fall into diverse temptations, and you're going
to fall into many of them as you go through this world. As
a child of God, walking through this world as a wilderness, before
we come to the land of promise, we're going to fall into many
trials, many temptations, many afflictions. Count it all joy. That's what the apostle tells
us to do. By nature, we have a tendency
to say, oh no, oh no, this is awful. No, count it all joy. Now He's not telling us that
the temptation itself, we are to count that, the tribulation,
as joy. If it's a temptation to sorrow,
to pain, to whatever hurts, He's not telling us that the temptation
itself we're to count joyous, but to count it all joyous that
you've fallen into this. Why? Because of the knowing,
He says, knowing. Count it all joy, my brethren,
count it all joy when you fall into divers temptations, knowing,
knowing. What is it that we know? Well,
we know that God uses these trials. He uses these temptations, these
tribulations that He allows His people to fall into. We know
this. We know that our Father, in love
is greater than the trial. Whatever it is, whatever the
trial is, we know that our Father who is love, He is greater than
the trial. He's greater than the temptation,
knowing that. And this is what allows us to
count it all joy. Count it joy, it's joyous in
knowing that He uses this as in this place for the trying
of your faith. Faith that's not tried may be
true faith. It may well be true faith, but
we will not know until it is tried. And then when it is tried,
it will prove itself to be true or to be false. I've used this illustration before,
but I've read stories, and I'm sure you have as well, People
who've always had a desire to build us a boat, a sailboat,
and sail around the world. And some of them have lived their
dream. They got plans and they've built
them a sailboat in their garage or in their backyard or something
like that. And their dream is to sail around
the world. I've often said, I believe I'd
want to go down to the bay first and sail in the bay before I
started around the world. And faith, I'd want to try the
ship. I want to try the boat, wouldn't
you? Make sure it was seaworthy, make sure I knew how to operate
the ship. And the trying of our faith,
the apostle Paul, apostle James tells us, is that it works patience. David said, before I was afflicted,
I went astray. Before I was afflicted, I went
astray. So these trials, these temptations
that we are to count it joyous when we fall into them are trials
that the Lord uses and he uses in our life to produce patience. You know the end of Job, the
patience of Job, how he was tried. These things don't come by accident. They don't come at Satan's will,
though God may use Satan in the trial, in the temptation. The
apostle Paul called that thorn in his flesh a messenger of Satan. But remember, Satan is still
under the control of God. And we see that, don't we, in
the case of Job. God gave Satan permission to
try Job. And what a trial. But he could
not do anything. He could not take one nickel
that man had until God gave him permission. Couldn't take one
animal. Couldn't take his children. couldn't
take his health, couldn't do anything until God gave him permission. And when God gave him permission,
God gave Job the grace and the strength to meet the trial. The Lord counted all joys in
knowing that this has an appointed end, whatever it is. God has
an appointed end. The psalmist said this, he said,
the Lord will perfect that which concerneth me. And every child
of God here today, you can say the same thing. The Lord will
perfect that which concerneth me. Whatever He sends our way,
the Lord will perfect that which concerns us. And all that God
has appointed for me is for His glory, first of all. It's for
His glory. Whatever it is, it's for His
glory. If it's a trial, temptation,
affliction, whatever it is, it's first of all for His glory. That
His grace may be manifested. Who is it that gives us faith
to continue believing? It's the Lord. It's His grace
that is glorified. His mercy that is glorified. He will do that which is right. Many times I've come to the end
of myself. I'm sure you have as well, or
maybe sometime you will. When you just come to the place,
you realize there's nothing you can do. Nothing. And you do not have any promise
that God's going to make this turn out the way you want it
to turn out either. The way that what you think would
be best for you. We don't know what is best for
us. We think we do. But isn't it
wonderful to have a father who knows and will do what is best? The judge of all the earth will
do right. That's what Abraham said. The
judge of all the earth will do right. whatever He does and whatever
He brings and whatever He allows in your life or my life, we have
this confidence, this assurance that God Almighty will do right. He will do right. And He has
our best interest at heart. You think about that scripture
where the Lord said, if you being evil know how to give good gifts
unto your children, How much more your heavenly Father
shall give good things unto them that ask him? Yes, he knows. All that God has appointed for
me is for my good and for his glory, and he will do it. And
we should count it joy in knowing that nothing, nothing can separate
us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. I don't care
what the trial is, what the temptation is, what the affliction is, there's
nothing that can separate us from the love of God which is
in Christ Jesus. If you're one of his children.
Look over in Romans, isn't that what the apostle says? In Romans chapter eight, Verse 35, who shall separate
us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress,
or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, for thy sake
we are killed all the day long. We are counted as sheep for the
slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors
through him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither
death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers,
nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth,
nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the
love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Count it all
joy, brethren, when you fall into diverse temptations, knowing
this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience, patience,
that nothing, no matter how difficult the trial may be, the temptation
may be, it cannot separate you from the love of God. Now, I
want you to look at one other place in 1 Corinthians chapter
10. And here we have a promise. 1 Corinthians chapter 10 and verse 13. There hath no temptation taken
you, but such as is common to man. But God is faithful, who
will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able. but
will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that you
may be able to bear it. Now in the context of this verse,
where this verse is found rather, the context, we see that the
apostle is clearly warning against sin. That's clearly the warning. He's writing to this church at
Corinth, a church that was founded by the Apostle Paul, him bringing
the gospel to them. It was a city that was known
for its wickedness in that day. The temple, the main temple there
was a temple dedicated to the goddess Venus, and they had incorporated
into their worship, pagan. Of course it was pagan, but the
worship that included temple prostitutes, it was a evil city,
a wicked place. And notice that two times in
this chapter, chapter 10, leading up to that verse, Paul tells
them that the things that happened to the children of Israel happened
for our examples. Notice that in verse 6, he says,
now these things were our examples. Verse 11, now all these things
happened unto them for in samples or examples. And he's clearly
warning the church, the believers in Corinth against that which
would lead to sin. And what it was, being invited
to go with unbelievers Even though you did not recognize this temple,
this God, rather, no one persuaded in your mind that there's no
God but one, that an idol is nothing, but yet you go with
these unbelievers who do believe, who do worship that God, or goddess,
whatever it might be, and you present yourself along with them
in a temple where meat is sacrificed to that God, and even though
in your heart you know an idol is nothing, yet you put yourself
in the place of temptation. And Paul is warning against that. And he uses the example, two
times he said, what happened to the Israelites of old, they
are examples to us. And he points out this fact,
that every last one of them came out of Egypt following the cloud. They all followed that cloud,
that pillar of fire by night and a cloud by day. Every one
of them did. And they all passed through the
Red Sea on dry ground. Every one of them did. They all
ate the manna, which is one place called angel's food. They all
ate the manna. And they all drank the water
that came out of that rock, which was a picture of Jesus Christ
our Lord. That rock is Christ, Paul said. That rock pictures Christ. He
is the source of living water. Whosoever drinketh of the water
that I shall give unto him shall never die. They all drank the
same spiritual water it's called. I believe it was called spiritual
water and spiritual food because God the Holy Spirit is the one
who gave the manna and gave the water from the rock. But the
point is they all followed that cloud, they all passed through
the Red Sea on dry ground, they all ate the manna, they all drank
the water, but with many of them, in fact, all but two. God was
not well pleased. And only two men that came out
of Egypt who were 20 years of age and older entered in to the
land of promise. God was not well pleased with
them. And so we read of five things. Five things that they fell into. Some lusted after evil things,
the apostle tells us. What was this, lusting after
evil things? You know, they wanted flesh. They wanted flesh. They grew
tired of that angel's food, that mammon. We want flesh to eat. God gave them flesh. And while
the meat was still in their mouths, God killed them, many of them. Not all of them, but many of
them. They lusted after evil things. And second, he says,
they were guilty of idolatry. When Moses was up on the mountain
receiving the law from God, remember they asked Aaron, or they told
Aaron, we want a God that we can see. We want a God that we
can see, and isn't that always the case with lost men and women? We walk by faith and not by sight,
but carnal men, lost men, they want to see with these physical
eyes. We want a God that we can see.
So Aaron took their gold and they fashioned them two calves,
two golden calves, and the children of Israel when he said, these
be thy gods. They were trying to worship Jehovah
made in the image of a calf. They weren't worshiping Baal,
per se. They were not worshiping any
of those false gods that they had heard about in Egypt. It
was Jehovah, but their attempt was to worship Jehovah through
that idol. God is spirit. And it is an offense
to God to think that there's anything that man can make that pictures him. God is in
a, if I can use this term, in a category all by himself. The
Holy Lord God. They fell into idolatry and the
next thing they fell into fornication. Because the Moabites, when they
came along and got involved in this part of their worship, included
fornication. And they became guilty of it. I believe there was 23,000 the
Lord killed at that time. And then it says they tempted
Christ. It's all here in these verses here in 1 Corinthians
10 before we get to the promise. They tempted Christ. What does
that mean, they tempted him? They tried his patience. They
tried his patience, his faithfulness, and his power. They put to the
test. And the fifth thing that is mentioned
is murmuring. Murmuring. We look, if you're
like me, we look at these five things and we can see fornication,
we can see idolatry and lusting after evil things. We can see
how evil all those things are, but do we include murmuring also? Being displeased? That's what
they murmured about. It was the way, the way that
God was leading them. They began to murmur. And God sent those fiery serpents
among them. Now, he says, take heed. Notice that in verse 12. Yes,
verse 12. Wherefore, let him that thinketh
he standeth, take heed. Lest thinking he stand, he fall. And then this wonderful, precious
promise. There hath no temptation taken
you, but such as is common to man. But God is faithful, who
will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able, but
will with the temptation also make a way to escape that you
may be able to bear it. I began looking at this verse,
this promise, asking myself, now, is this temptation temptation
to sin, or is this temptation a trial? Which is it? Well, the context surely is talking
about sin. That's obvious. It's talking
about sin. So I'm going to say it applies
to both. There's no temptation to sin
that is not common to man. And there's no temptation, testing,
trial, or affliction that is not common to man. But the point
is, God is faithful. God is faithful, who will with
the temptation. And that little word with makes
me believe it is not temptation to sin that this verse is speaking
of in particular, but it is speaking about afflictions and trials
and difficulties. Because you see, it's God who
will with the temptation. And we know that God cannot be
tempted with sin, neither tempteth He any man. to sin. He does test, yes. So God is
faithful who will with the temptation make a way of escape that we
may be able to bear it. In 2 Timothy chapter 2 and verse
9, the apostle said, the Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly
out of temptation. The Lord knoweth how. God is faithful, and remember
this, He will proportion the testing to the strength that
He gives you. The test may be great, so the
strength that He gives you is going to be great. He's faithful. The temptation comes by His permission,
and He knows how, and He knows when to deliver you. It's not always immediately.
I think all of us by nature, when we are in some trial, some
difficulty, we want to be delivered yesterday. Yesterday. Remember Paul, he had that trial. He sought the Lord three times
and the Lord told him, my grace is sufficient for you. Whatever
that thorn in the flesh was, he had until the day he died. But he found out along the way
that God's grace was sufficient. That's the point. God is faithful. What a promise we have, all of
us who know him tonight, or today, as our Lord and as our Savior.
There hath no temptation taken us, but such as is common to
man. But God is faithful. He's faithful,
aren't you? Thankful that we serve a faithful
God. He will not deny himself. And his word, his word is sure. He will not suffer you to be
tempted above that you're able, but will with the temptation
also make a way to escape. And the escape may be that you
may be able to bear it. Well, I trust the Lord would
bless this message to all of us here today. I thought we'd end our service
by singing that hymn, Under His Wings, number 269. And we'll stand as we sing number
269.