I invite your attention back
to Matthew, the fourth chapter. One notice, we will have the Lord's
table this afternoon after worship service because we were unable
to have it last week because of the snow. After the meal this afternoon.
The title of my message is Religious Seduction. Religious Seduction. This is the record of what is called Our Lord's Temptation.
Our Lord's Temptation. And here it is said He is tempted
of Satan. And it is one of the more well-known portions of Scripture. These temptations mirror the
temptations of every child of God as they apply to our natural
flesh. First John says it's the lust
of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life
is what we deal with. And remember, he's not writing
to men who are outside Jesus Christ, but to those who are
in Jesus Christ. Now the word temptation, as it's
used here, needs some qualification concerning as it applies to the
Lord Jesus Christ. This was Satan's effort to tempt
the Lord, and it met with dismal failure. The Lord was not tempted
to actually do any of the things, because for a temptation to actually
tempt for it to work, it must reach and find a place of response. We pray, lead us not into temptation,
Because we know that our flesh responds to temptation. But the Lord Jesus Christ had
no response for it. He did not want what was offered. So temptation did not find a
place in him. This, when he used the word tempted
Christ, it means Satan endeavored to tempt him. But it didn't work. It didn't work. We respond to
temptation because there is an allure in us that what is offered
to us is favorable to us. That's why we yield to temptation.
Christ was not tempted to do these things because there was
no sin in him, no avarice, no desire for what Satan put on
the table. Now some ersatz theologians have
argued that the temptation is of no value if Christ could not
have responded to it. In other words, in order for
him to be praised for resisting, he must have been able to have
sinned, is what they say. That would suggest that there
was in Christ a mutable nature and the possibility, even the
bent to sin, and no such thing existed in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Our Lord was not tainted with original sin because He was the
seed of a woman and not the seed of Adam. Our Lord had no sin,
saith the Scripture. He knew no sin, saith the Scripture. And He was without sin, saith
the Scripture. So when these things were offered
to Him, they found no place in Him. They found no place. This
was Satan's endeavored attempt. This is not the Lord's temptation.
It was Satan's effort to tempt the Lord. Our Lord later declared
that Satan was a failure in this. In John 14, 30, he said, Hereafter
I'll walk not much with you. He's leaving his disciples. He
says, For the prince of this world cometh and hath nothing
in me. He had nothing in me. Sadly, the prince of this world
has some stuff in us, in our nature. Satan does not have to
venture too far on us to discover fertile ground to plant his crop.
With Christ, his seeds fell by the wayside. Scripture says, for we have not
a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our
infirmities, but was in all points tempted like us, yet without
sin. Yet without sin. The word used
here for temptations comes from a word that means to assay, which
means an analysis of a substance to determine its components.
And in fact, means to endeavor to find evil. That's what Satan
wanted, was to find an evil heart in the Lord Jesus Christ, and
he found none. And this was Satan giving his
best shot on the only truly sinless man that ever lived upon the
face of the earth, And he met with utter failure. He went away,
having not succeeded. What then was the reason for
this temptation? Did Satan really think he could
make the Lord God do something? Did he think he could make the
Lord God do a miracle just so to feed himself or to worship
Satan, to fall down and worship Satan, or to gain all the world?
The cattle on a thousand hills belongs to the Lord. Satan knew
who he was. The word if thou be the son of
God is actually the Greek word since. Since thou be the son
of God is how Satan approached him. There are several things
that are taught in this passage of scripture. And first the entire
thing is about disqualification of our Lord as substitute. That's
what it's really about. For Satan was, I'm sure, listening
in before, when our Lord was baptized, when our Lord Jesus
Christ, after John didn't want to baptize him, caused John to
do so, our Lord says, it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness,
that nobody in the water but him. And he's not speaking in some
religious sense like a lot of pastors do when they use the
ecumenical we. He's not using that. He says
it suffered us to become all righteousness. What does that
mean? That means when Jesus Christ was in that water, every one
of his elect was in that water with him. to fulfill all righteousness. Christ was not alone in His baptism. He spoke as our substitute. And
all the elect are in Him because it is required that all His elect
stand before God in a perfect righteousness. And that's only
if Christ is made to be righteousness unto them. Christ's baptism was
an intercessory work like every other work He did. It was for
the glory of God and for the good of his people. It was a
substitutionary work. And so was his temptation. When
he went through this temptation, it was an intercessory work.
It was for you and it was for me. It was for you and it was
for me. Because all He did in this world
was for the glory of the Father and for the salvation of His
people and for the good of all His people. Secondly, this was
fulfilling of Old Testament types of Jesus Christ. This temptation. Our Lord fasted 40 days and 40
nights. There's only two other characters
in Scripture that did that. Moses and Elijah. Moses in Exodus
chapter 34. Elijah in First Kings 19. These
two, Moses and Elijah, spent 40 days and 40 nights in the
wilderness. And that's very important. Why?
Because Moses and Elijah are the two that represent the law
and the prophets. the Law and the Prophets throughout
the Old Testament, Moses and Elijah. It was these two that
crossed the time-space continuum to appear at the transfiguration
of Jesus Christ and spoke to him of the death that he should
accomplish in Jerusalem, Moses and Elijah. It was Christ It
was to Christ that all the law and the prophets gave witness
over and over again in the preaching of the gospel, especially in
the early days in the church, in the book of Acts. This was
stated by the preachers of the gospel. All the prophets and
the law gave witness to the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul said, after
the way which men call heresy, that's how I worship God. Believing
all that's written in the law and the prophets concerning him. The early of this temptation
took place for our comfort when we are tempted. For Scripture
says, for in that he himself has suffered being tempted, he
is able to succor or comfort them that are tempted. That's
Hebrews chapter two and verse 18. Fourthly, this temptation
takes place as a part of the reason for our Lord coming into
this world. It says he came into this world,
was manifest, and he came into this world to destroy the works
of the devil. 1 John chapter 3, in verse 8. And fifthly, we learn from this
that the temptations of the devil are primarily, are really always
toward the elect. They're always toward the elect.
Now religious society, as well as society in general, likes
to put the blame on Satan for all man's evil deeds. They do. They just say, it's gotta be
Satan. The devil made me do it. That's what Skip Wilson, I believe
his name was, used to say. The devil made me do it. But
that's nothing more than the alibis offered in the Garden
of Eden for Adam and Eve's evil deeds and their sin against God.
Adam said, the woman you made, she made me do it. The woman
said, that serpent, he made me do it. Nobody taking responsibility
for themselves and for their own actions. Listen to me very
carefully. The devil does not tempt the
lost man to do evil. Because there's no need to. There's
no need for the lost man to be tempted to do evil. Within man
is the capacity and the bent naturally to do all manner of
evil and the only thing that prompts him is his own heart. For our Lord said, it's not what
you take into your body, but whatever you take in goes out.
It's what comes out of your heart that defiles you. There are murderers,
evil eyes, thefts and so forth, adulterers are all there. The
lost man points to the outside influences for his evil practices.
The believer knows that the problem is within himself. That's what
the believer knows. The devil, if he tempts a lost
man, he tempts him not to do evil, but to do good. To do good. He tempts him with rewards of
religiously doing good in the sight of men. Satan is not in
the business of making lost men worse. He's in the business of
making lost men appear better. To look good. To shine up the
outside. To appear better to themselves
and also to the religion around them. and hold before them the
pipe dream, the lie of achieving personal merit before God. Satan
is in the pulpits, appealing to the flesh, because he cannot
appeal to the spirit. He cannot appeal to the spirit.
He also applies the same tactic to the sinners saved by grace.
If he tempts you, he's not gonna tempt you to go out and do evil. He's gonna tempt you to believe
that something you do actually merits a righteousness before
God. It's what he's gonna do. It's what he's gonna do. The
flesh and the spirit are wondrous things, they're mysterious. We
can't draw a dotted line down the middle of us and say this
is the flesh and this is the spirit, because we don't really know. When we
would do good, evil is present with us, always scripture says
it. That's just a fact. But I'm here to tell you this
morning, the spirit cannot be tempted. The spirit cannot be
tempted. and the flesh cannot do anything
spiritual. Religious temptation talks about
spirituality. It does. It tells men they're
gonna be spiritual, but how does it define it? If you'll do this,
God will do this. Getting something for something.
If you'll pray such and such, Religious experience called spirituality,
receiving something from God wherein it relates to you in
a kind of power that you can do things that you couldn't do
before. That's the flesh. You see, the spirit is invisible.
Our spiritual life is invisible. We can't see our righteousness
because it sits at the right hand of the Father on high. We
can't determine what's righteous and what's not because it sits
way far away. And yet, the flesh can never
understand that we as children of God sit in heavenly places
with Jesus Christ right now. Why? Because it can't see it. And if it can't be seen, the
flesh don't want to have anything to do with it. Flesh has got
to see it. Flesh has got to feel it. Flesh
has got to evidence it. Flesh has got to confirm it.
Well, what about the Spirit? You say you can't prove anything,
that's right. What does the Spirit do? What
our Lord did when He was tempted. It is written. That's where the Spirit lives.
Not where men can see some evidence. It lives where men can't even
understand apart from the grace of God. It lives in a different
realm and in a different world. You say, well, if a man's a Christian,
he's gonna do that. Show me that scripture. We're
admonished to do this, admonished to do that, but there's never
an equation in scripture where it says, if I'm my child, we'll
do this. Our Lord said, if you love me,
you'll keep my words. His words are spirit and they
are life. This whole thing has got so bamboozled
that people don't even understand it. It's so confusing for people.
Even believers have difficulty in separating the two. But let
me tell you this. Your flesh cannot do anything
spiritual. It cannot do anything spiritual.
You can yield your members to be used of the Lord. But in the
use of the Lord, there's still sin in that. Because it's your
flesh that's doing it. You can never be satisfied with
that. So what do we do? We live off the Word of God. I preached a message recently
in Deuteronomy on the Lord saying this very thing, where he quoted
from in Deuteronomy, where the Lord said, I gave you manner
to prove you that you must live every day by the Word of God,
by the Word of God. Now religion takes that and says,
well, you see this, you got to do it, you see this, you got
to do it, you see this. No! We live believing, and that is
something the flesh never can do, nor can it ever understand. But religion will convince flesh
that it has believed by showing evidence of it. And that makes
it a work of the flesh, and not of the spirit. Know the only
evidence we have, the only time the word evidence is used twice
in scripture, one time it's a legal term, And it's only used one
time in reference to knowing God. Do you know that? The word
evidence, faith, is the evidence of things hoped for. The substance
of things not seen. Not seen. Hoped for, not seen. If you can see it, you can't hope in it, and it
ain't of faith. It's of the flesh. and it all
is doomed to pass away. That's what this passage is teaching
us. Satan coming to tempt our Lord. Satan coming to tempt us. False religion coming to tempt
us. Where do we find God's people?
Where do we find them? We don't find them in the bars
and the bordellos, we find them in the churches. It was to Babylon,
the great whore, the Lord says, come out of her, my people. Where they at? They in Babylon. They in false religion, come
out of her, my people. Be not partaker of her iniquities. Look back at our text, at the
first word in verse one, is the word then. Word then, that speaks of the
heavenly declaration that Christ was God's son, that God was pleased
or propitiated with him. It was manifest when the Holy
Spirit descended upon him. Then, then was Jesus led into
the wilderness. It's a picture of the new birth.
It's a picture of the new birth. Mark says that Jesus was immediately
driven by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted. When
God's children are awakened and regenerated by the Spirit, they
are then recognizable to Satan. And the temptations will begin
immediately. They will ensue immediately upon
believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. They will. That's immediate upon
belief. Satan comes up and tries to get
you to doubt. Tries to get you to look at something
else. Tries to get you to prove that you are really a child of
God. That's what he's doing here in this passage of scripture.
This wondrous episode is about the religion of Christ and the
religion of Satan. It's about true religion and
that is the work of Christ as the entire means of acceptance
before God and Satan's religion. From the beginning is temptation
of the flesh to be accepted before God by the works of men. That's
the way it always is. What did he tempt Eve with? If you will
do this, you will be as God. But you gotta do this to be this. That's what it said. That's the
temptation. Our Lord said to the Pharisees,
that's all they did. Their father was the devil. And
they always did the works of the devil. And let me tell you,
these aren't fake ministries, Satan's church, and I'm not talking
about some people out there packing pentagrams on the side of buildings.
I'm talking about men who stand and proclaim God, the God of
this book, but not entirely. They change His glory to be like
a man. They're idolaters all, but they
talk good. They fill the theological seminaries. They fill the pulpits, they got
letters behind their names. They're doctors, and doctors
of letters, and doctors of philosophy, and doctors of theology. They
got all of that. And they stand up and tell people
that if they will do this, God will do this. If a person says,
if you'll do this, God will do this, and let me tell you, that
person is of Satan and not of Christ. Because that's Satan's
temptation. If you're who you say you are,
do this. If you do this, I'll give you this. That's his message. It's always been his message,
and it's his message today. You say, well, that puts a lot
of people in jeopardy. I'm not putting anybody in jeopardy.
I'm just a man. Were it not for the grace of God, I'd be in a
continuous state of jeopardy. But this is what's going on.
This is what's going on in the world we live in today. It's
translated all throughout society. The very first thing that is
glaringly obvious is that false religion is nothing more than
an offer. That's what it is. It's an offer. An offer of something
that you don't have. That's what it is. I remember hearing a preacher
one time saying, well, the reason why we preach Christ, first we've
got to make people unhappy with what they got. Tell
them to show them Christ. He said, that's what a salesman
does. I was in sales for a while, I was never good at it because
I never could really do a good closing on sales because I could
lie all the way up to the big line. The big line just shut
me down. When I couldn't do it, wasn't
able, I never could get it right. My eyes would shift or I'd look
like I was lying to people who wouldn't buy what I was selling.
But Satan offers you stuff. Does God offer you anything in
Scripture? From Genesis 1 to Revelation,
does God offer you something? No. He never offers anything. He
gives stuff. He bestows. But He doesn't offer. Salvation is not an offer, but
religion says it is. It says it is. Satan's temptations
comes in the form of offers. I will do such and such, and
then I will, if you will do such and such, then I will give you
such and such. False religion always has conditions. And being
conditional, it relies on the individual to want and to take
whatever is offered in order to receive the reward that is
offered for taking it. And that's what our Lord said.
Make these stones great. I'll give you the kingdoms of
the world if you'll do this. That's an offer. That's an offer. Christ didn't offer salvation
to you. You wasn't around when he saved
you, when he redeemed you on Calvary Street 2,000 years ago.
You weren't even around. He didn't offer anything. We
don't offer anything. Satan offers. This is for us
to see. This is how Satan tempts God's
person, God's people. It's how he tempted or tried
to tempt the Lord Jesus Christ by offering Him something. The end of such doctrine is that
preachers speak of God as offering salvation, offering grace and
offering mercy rather than God saving and God showing grace
and God bestowing mercy. They say, God will show you mercy
if you'll let Him. That's an offer. God will save you if you walk
down this aisle, that's an offer. God will save you if you pray
through, that's an offer. God doesn't do that. How does He
save His people? He calls them by the gospel. We are bound to give thanks always
to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God has
from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification
of the Spirit and belief in the truth, whereunto He called you
by our gospel. That's to do with the Word of
God. Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.
True religion is a declaration of what is, not what might be
or what could be, and it's based wholly on what God said. When the Lord was tempted, His
response was three times, it is written. It is written. Thou shalt not, man shall not
live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the
mouth of God. Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. Only God shall be worshipped,
and Him only shall be served, because that's what the Bible
said. And this is where the flesh can't get. You see, the flesh
can't understand this book to start with, so they think it's
foolish that the child of God relies on it so heavily. But
this is all we have. This is all we have. This is
it. What knowledge do you have of Jesus Christ? Well, I just feel. Go ahead and
feel all you want to. One of these days you're going
to die and you're going to be able to feel. What then? What
you got then? Nothing. We got this. And it's our only defense. And
when we use it, the world's going to laugh at us. And religion
will say we require more. But we don't have it to give.
We got this. How do you know you're a child
of God? Because God gave me faith to believe this book. That's
how I know. Can I prove it to you? Can I
prove that I believe to you? No. I know I do. And if you believe, you know
you do. But you can't prove it to me that you do. And if you
do prove it, you're in the flesh. If you can come up with something
to prove that you're a child of God, you're in the flesh.
This is what we got. Words handed down, 3,500 year
old book. This is what we got. No one in
the world thinks we're fools. Everybody says, show me, show
me, show me, show me. We say, I can't show you a thing. But you can kill me and I won't
stop believing this, because I can't. God give me the faith
to do so. Secondly, false religion goes
after a person who is naturally in a low estate. Our Lord was
afterward in hunger. False religion likes that. gets
people, finds people in a situation where they're just destitute,
naturally. And it offers them to, if they
will do something, give something, come somewhere, that a blessing
awaits them. A blessing awaits them if they'll
just do that. We have but to listen to these
Pratting preachers on TV, these religious hucksters, these wailing
wackos. Listen to them. They speak of
their ministry as being to the hurting and to the poor. They hold healing crusades. I
saw one the other day. I'll tell you, Benny Hinn is
entertaining. If nothing else, he is entertaining. He took off
his coat. I started swinging over his head,
and he was knocking people down in the spirit all over. Every
time he touched the coat, somebody would fall down. A coat of many whacks, that's
what I call that. Got him up on stage. Fella come up and says, I'm having
trouble with my hearing. I want to do something about
my hearing. And he grabbed him by the ears. Fellas said, no,
I've got a hearing in court Wednesday is what I'm talking about. No,
that's not true. That's a joke. Gets them up on stage because
they need something. And he said, I'm going to bless
you if you'll come up here and exercise your faith. They held
out promises they can't keep and free themselves from blame
by saying that if healing doesn't occur, that it's because of the
lack of faith in the one that's hurting. They still get the money
though. False religion espouses that
being released from natural suffering is proof that you are a child
of God. It's not. God can heal you and send you
to hell. God can heal you and send you
to hell. God can suffer the Satan to heal you, to do wonders and
mighty things. He can suffer that. Everybody
that the Lord healed in the Bible died. Their healing wasn't eternal
because they ended up dying. Those are natural instances that
point to spiritual truth. But you can be healed in the
flesh. You can be healed of addiction. I know many people who used to
drink and they don't drink no more and they believe that that's
salvation, but it's not salvation. Not salvation. Salvation is knowing God. And
that only by the Word of God. False religion says that being
healed or having some miracle happen to you or something happen
to you in the flesh is proof that you're a child of God. And
they say that because they have no understanding that the physical
and the natural has nothing to do with the spiritual. Do you
understand that? Physical and natural has nothing
to do with the spiritual. They're always contrary to each other,
Scripture said. And the spirit will never accomplish
anything in the flesh, the flesh will never accomplish anything
in the spirit. It's just impossible. Can't be done. Can't be done. Also false religions says things
like, step out on faith, try God. You ever heard that? I've
heard that. Won't you try God? That's what
Satan did. Then the devil take them up to
the holy city and set them on the pinnacle of the temple and
said unto him, if thou be the son of God, cast thyself down
for it is written, he shall give his angels charge over thee.
Just step out on faith. Step out on faith. Often false
religion will use the word of God to support their tempting
notions. Satan quotes scripture for his purposes. He quoted from
the Psalms. Quoted scripture to the Lord,
who wrote the scriptures. They do it to support their tempting
notions, but do so in a manner that the hearer is guilted into
giving it a shot. That's what he did. He's the
son of God. Prove it. Jump off his heel. God said His angels will take
charge over you. You won't dash your foot against
a stone. Christ said, it's written, thou
shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. Thou shalt not tempt the
Lord thy God. Religion yokes people into thinking
that they have to do more or do something or be something
to get more faith. They'll take a passage like when
the Lord said, if your faith was as a mustard seed, you could
move mountains. And they think that means that
this is a challenge. I'm gonna get the kind of faith
I can move around when our Lord is actually saying, you fellas
don't have a whole lot of faith. That's what he was saying. That's
what he was saying, just saying it in reverse. You don't have the faith, the
size of a mustard seed is what he's saying. But they take that
as some kind of challenge and religion plays on that. If you
ain't moving mountains, then you ain't got faith. True faith
gives you power. True faith doesn't give you anything
except the ability to believe. That's all faith does. It believes. Faith is not some kind of powerful
thing in you that you can make things happen. You're not gonna
make anything happen. People like to, well, if we pray
enough, you know, we get some prayer warriors together. We
get a prayer circle together. We get enough people praying,
we can move God. You ain't gonna move God one
inch. So why do you pray? Well, first
of all, we pray to honor God. We pray to worship God. And we
do ask Him for what we need. And He gives us what we need.
Sometimes we ask Him for what we want, and we don't get what
we want. But it's Him who pushes in our
heart to pray. David said, I found it in my heart to pray. Most
of what we do, we call prayer, ain't a whole lot of prayer anyway.
Just words. Just words. We'll do business
with God when we really need to, I know that. Step out on
faith. Send me your money. Send me your
money. Plant some seed faith and God
will give you more money. a hundred-fold, sixty-fold, or
thirty-fold, they use that. Buy this little cloth I've prayed
over, and you pray over it too, and God'll give you back your
money in three-fold, ten-fold. But you gotta plant that seed
of faith. You got to start this process. Show me anywhere in
Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation, where God ever speaks like that. Peter, fishing all night, hadn't
caught a thing. Hadn't caught a thing. Christ shows up on the shore.
Says, cast your nets on the other side. He said, I've been fishing all
night. Nevertheless, at thy word, I'll cast in my nets. And he
couldn't, had so many, almost sank the boat trying to drag
them in. at thy word. Throw yourself over the preface
as he said. God will ensure you that you're rewarded for it. That's not scripture. People
say let go and let God. You can't let God do nothing.
He's God. He might let you do something. He might not. This
notion is often the playground of the ill-conceived view of
predestination and smacks of fatalism. True religion says
that to do something or plan to do something that is not warranted
by the Word of God is to tempt God. Sure, the Lord said He'll take
care of you and won't hurt your foot. But that doesn't say go
step in front of a bus, does it? That's a rationalization, that's
a wrong thinking, a bad logic on the human mind. It is to try
to get God to prove himself based on the exercise of your faith,
and that ain't gonna work. It is when thou shalt not tempt
the Lord thy God. Tempting God is to try to prove
you have faith by visible exercise, such as keeping the law or trying
to get someone else to do it. That's what happened at the first
Bible conference in Acts chapter 15. They was trying to get tied
or circumcised. They was trying to get him under
the law when Paul came back and said it ain't going to happen.
It's not going to happen. You're not going to make him
do that. You're not going to bring him back under the law. They said, well, if
he's really a Christian, that's what he's going to do. He said,
no, that ain't the way it works. And finally, Peter stood up and said,
brethren, we've been under that law all our life. We couldn't
do anything. It was just miserable to us. All it did was make us
miserable. He said, we believe that by the grace of God we are
saved just like this heathen Gentile was saved, by the grace
of God. And he puts himself second in
that equation. He doesn't say, we believe he'll
be saved just like we were. We believe we'll be saved just
like he was, by the grace of God. And he said to those fellows,
don't tempt the Lord. by making this fella do something
to prove to you that he's a child of God. That's tempting the Lord. That's tempting the Lord. False
religion is serving God for gain. It's always about getting something.
Always about getting something. That's what the devil said. He
took him up on the high mountain and said, I see all these kingdoms,
sell the glory. If you'll fall down and worship
me, I'll give it all to you. I'll give it all to you. It's
about gaining something. Religion promises that you worship
God, you'll get something for it. I'll tell you what you'll
get for it. A life of anguish and pain. A life of tribulation
and worry. A life of affliction of your
soul. A life of trouble. It only begins when you know
Christ. It doesn't end until you die.
This is what you'll get. Well, I don't want that, I want
something else. I want some of the world's kingdom.
I believe if I trust God, and I show my faith, He'll give me
blessings, He'll give me health and wealth. Listen, if you have
any blessings from God, you've always had those blessings from
God, and only those blessings from God, and you have all of
them. Because the blessings of God are spiritual. Now, He does,
in a sense, blesses people with temporal things, but if they
don't last, they ain't real. Only that which is true is eternal
and invisible. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us, past tense, with
all spiritual blessings in Jesus Christ according as He's chosen
us in Him before the foundation of the world. If you are blessed,
it's because God has blessed you. That's why. And you can't do something to
be blessed. You ain't gonna get God in a
bargain. You ain't gonna get him in a
trade-off. You ain't gonna get him in a flea market situation.
You ain't gonna get him by a dickering. It ain't gonna happen. It ain't gonna happen. False
religion promises that though. You'll get If you'll do what
you're supposed to do, you'll get blessings of health and wealth.
And this in fact makes God a beggar, waiting on you to do something
so he can do something for you. Just as the devil was in our
text. He's a beggar, trying to get God to do something. Worship me and I'll give you
stuff. The devil and his religion have
always operated on this premise and operate on it today. Paul told Timothy, godliness
with contentment. Being happy with where you are
and who you are and what you have. Godliness with contentment is
great gain. Nothing else is gain, nothing
whatsoever. Satan's been trying this for
a long time. The oldest story in the Bible is Job. Job. How does Satan approach God about
Job? Well, actually, God approached
Satan about Job himself. He said, see, my servant, Job,
he always does what's good, and he hates evil, and he loves me.
You know what Satan said? Well, if he's going to serve
you for nothing, look at all you've given him.
He's the richest man in the whole nation. The Lord said, you think
that's why he worships me? Satan says, yeah. He said, well,
I'll let you take everything he's got from him. Go ahead. Go ahead. So God suffered Satan
to take everything he had, his children, everything but
an odious wife, kept her around. But he took all his cattle, all
his money, all his belongings, and he left him with nothing.
Satan said, we'll see how this works out. And Job said, naked
I came into this world, and naked I shall return. The Lord giveth,
and the Lord taketh away. He's given me good things, now
he's gonna give me some evil things. Blessed be the name of
the Lord. Why do you serve God? If you
really serve Him, if you really worship Him, you worship Him
for nothing. That's right. You worship Him for nothing.
False religion serves Satan all the while quoting Scripture,
providing evidence of their faith. True religion believes the Word
of God, serves and worships God without trying to prove or gain
anything. Why do we worship God? He's worthy. He ought to be worshiped. With every breath we breathe,
we ought to worship Him. We don't, but we ought to. Let
everything that hath breath praise God, Scripture says. True religion believes what God's
Word says. Don't seem like much unless you
do it. How well do you believe God? I don't want to put it on
a measure. I don't want to put you on some
kind of spiritual thermometer and figure out how good I'm doing. I'm not
doing that good. But we rely on the Word of God. It is written, Thou shalt worship
the Lord God, and Him only shalt thou serve. And the world is
nothing compared to it, all the kingdoms of the world. Satan will tempt you, listen, Satan will tempt you to believe
that what you do somehow creates a good standing
before God. He attempts you to believe. God will give you faith. Satan's not out there tempting
people to be bad. He's tempting them to believe. How close is this counterfeit?
So close that it would deceive even the very elect if it were
possible. Thank God it's not possible. Satan, God says that
he gives his people faith, he bestows grace upon them, saves
them by his grace, saves them by the substitution of blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ, that's what scripture says. And then
gives them faith and said believe. After all that's been done and
you didn't have anything to do with it, you can't change it. Satan
says, no, believe this. It does matter what kind of person
you are. Conduct and character does matter
in the matter of your salvation. They'll teach you that. So if
you'll do this, I'll do this. God says, I've done this. And
so you'll do this. That's what it is. That's a completely
different thing. Father, bless us for understanding
prayer in Christ.