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I'm glad the Bates sang that number this morning, The Gospel According to Jesus.

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Several years ago, Steve Camp, who wrote it, was going through a period of struggle in

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his life and read the book by John MacArthur entitled The Gospel According to Jesus.

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As a result of reading the book, he wrote the song that we heard sung this morning and

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sang it for the first time at a pastor's conference at Grace Community Church several years ago.

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The words are indeed thought-provoking.

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Let's open our Bibles together, please, to Matthew chapter 4 as we continue the series

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on firming up your foundation, today dealing with the theme of temptation.

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Susan Smith is guilty of the murder of her two children.

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I am sure that she regrets deeply having yielded to the temptation that led to the death of

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her boys.

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Before we become too agitated with Susan Smith and the terrible crime that she has committed

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and for which she will pay, let's recognize the fact that all of us are sinners and struggle

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with temptation.

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Temptation is a universal experience.

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On the one hand, we can be tempted by our own indwelling sin working in our flesh.

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James says, Let no one say when he is tempted, I am being tempted by God.

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For God cannot be tempted by evil, and he himself does not tempt anyone.

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Not each one is tempted when he is carried away, that is, when he is drawn out, when

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he is lured and enticed by his own lust.

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James puts it right where the blame belongs.

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Temptation comes out of our own sinful lusts working in our flesh.

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But on the other hand, we can also be tempted by the devil and his associates.

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We have an example of this in Acts 5 when Ananias brought to the apostles only a portion

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of the money that he had gained from the land which he and his wife Sapphira had sold.

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The sin was the hypocrisy of it because he pretended to bring the whole amount.

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Peter responds, having been given information by the Lord about what had happened, by saying

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this, Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back

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some of the price of the land?

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The word filled there is the same word as in Ephesians 5.18 for the filling of the Holy

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Spirit.

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So Peter says that just as Ananias and Sapphira could be controlled by or empowered by the

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Holy Spirit, so on this occasion Ananias was empowered by Satan.

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And Satan was the one who filled his heart so that he lied to the Holy Spirit.

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Let's be clear that he and Sapphira had begun the whole process.

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It was they who had schemed out of their own selfish greed to keep back part of the price

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and to lie about it.

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Their scheming, their creating this scenario gave Satan an opportunity for involvement

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so that he is the one who then empowered their plan.

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Warren and Ruth Myers writing in the Discipleship Journal say, when we say no to our selfish

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desires the devil gets no opportunity to gain a foothold.

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You see the devil has a hard time tempting us unless we give him an opportunity.

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When we begin to scheme as did Ananias and Sapphira and to plan out in our minds how

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we might sin and fulfill our own lusts, then Satan comes and takes advantage of that beach

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head in our lives to further the temptation.

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Today I want to talk about this theme because it is relevant to all ages.

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There are some who because they are older may feel that they don't need this as much

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as the young people of the church.

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Someone wrote, I have to admit to aging because now that I know my way around I don't feel

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like going.

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My forehead is getting higher and my energy is getting lower.

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My wife powders and I puff.

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It takes me longer to rest than it does to get tired.

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I am at the stage where my passion has turned to pensions.

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I can still hear temptation whispering, why not, why not?

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But my body shouts back, why bother, why bother?

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Let me tell you temptation still whispers as long as we are in this world.

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I remind you of people like Noah, Solomon, Moses, Uzziah, all of them godly and great

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people who ended their lives poorly as old men because they yielded to temptation.

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The older I get the more earnest the prayer of my heart, Lord may I finish well.

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So as we talk about temptation, this is for all ages not just for the young people.

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Every day of our lives we face the possibility of sin.

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And so we want to look at the foundation of our lives and see how we are doing at facing

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temptation and whipping it and beating it.

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We have no better example in this than Jesus Christ and we turn to this fourth chapter

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of Matthew because it talks about his temptation.

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It says then Jesus was let up.

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The word then draws our attention to the previous verses which talk to us about Jesus' baptism.

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And so his temptation occurred right after his baptism.

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He was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

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Many commentators have pointed out that this is one battle that Satan would like to have

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avoided.

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But it was the Holy Spirit who drove Jesus into the wilderness and forced this confrontation.

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And it says after he had fasted forty days and forty nights he then became hungry.

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And the tempter came and said to him, if you are the Son of God, command that these stones

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become bread.

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But he answered and said, it is written, man shall not live on bread alone but on every

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word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

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Then the devil took him into the holy city and he had him stand on the pinnacle of the

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temple and said to him, if you are the Son of God, throw yourself down.

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For it is written, he will give his angels charge concerning you.

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And on their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.

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The devil is here quoting scripture.

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We'll talk about that in a few minutes.

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Jesus said to him, on the other hand it is written, you shall not put the Lord your God

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to the test.

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Again the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world

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and their glory.

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And he said to him, all these things will I give you if you fall down and worship me.

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Then Jesus said to him, be gone, Satan, for it is written, you shall worship the Lord

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your God and serve him only.

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Then the devil left him.

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And behold the angels came and began to minister to him.

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Before we get into the text itself, let's notice as I pointed out earlier that the temptation

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followed Jesus' baptism.

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Remember that John's baptism there in the wilderness was a baptism unto repentance.

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He was calling the Jews to repent of their sins and as token of that repentance to be

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immersed in the waters of the Jordan.

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Then there was the day when Jesus came to John to be baptized and John immediately saw

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the irony of it.

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He said, Lord I have need to be baptized by you.

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You see John recognized there was no sin in Jesus of which he needed to repent.

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And so why did he submit himself to baptism?

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Jesus explains in verse 15 of this third chapter, permit it at this time for in this way it

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is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.

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What he is saying there, it is necessary for him to undergo this identification with sinners

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by baptism so that he might eventually make sinners righteous by his death on their behalf

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on the cross.

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Why was it necessary for Jesus to be tempted after this?

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God wanted to prove the qualification of his Son to be the Savior of sinners.

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God wanted to demonstrate the righteousness that was in Jesus Christ.

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He wanted all to know the perfection that could be found in his nature.

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And this was the way to do it.

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And we ask ourselves a crucial question that was settled years ago by church councils but

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is still being debated today by some theologians.

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That is could Jesus have sinned?

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When the devil tempted Jesus, could he have sinned?

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I wrote a very fine paper on that, at least I thought so, when I was in a theology class

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at one time in my life.

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And I did my best to prove the wrong position.

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The right position is, and the answer is no, Jesus could not have sinned.

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You see there was nothing in Jesus to agree with these temptations.

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He had no sin.

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There was nothing within him to agree.

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You say, well wasn't he a human being?

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Yes he was.

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Fully human.

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And that's why he could be tempted, you see.

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But remember he was also fully God.

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In one person there was united perfect humanity and undiminished deity.

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And his divine nature by necessity overshadowed the humanity of him.

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He was one person with two natures.

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The divine nature overshadowed the human nature.

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Jesus in his humanity was tempted by the devil.

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His deity was not tempted.

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For God cannot be tempted by evil, says James.

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Jesus could not have sinned.

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And then there are those, as someone said to me last week in the Bible conference we

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were in.

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Well, if Jesus couldn't have sinned, then his temptation wasn't real.

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He said, it doesn't comfort me to think that Jesus could not have sinned.

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And that was the response that I wrote out of years ago in Bible school.

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But you see just the opposite is true.

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It is a greater comfort.

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Not tell you why.

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Because Jesus, as man, could feel, just as you and I feel, the power of temptation.

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But he had no sin within him that would respond to it, to agree to it.

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You don't have to have that sin within you to agree with the temptation, to feel the

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temptation.

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The temptation is still very, very real.

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And because Jesus was God and man, he was able to absorb the full attraction that Satan

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could put on him.

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I mean Satan gave it 100% when he tempted Jesus.

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He's never done that to me.

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He's never had to.

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See, I've got this fuse in me and it blows.

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If I'm walking in my own strength, my fuse blows about 2.5% of temptation.

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I know most of you are about 25, maybe 50 or 60% you can absorb.

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I mean the full current was in Jesus.

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The whole current that Satan could throw at him passed through him.

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And so he knows temptation like you and I could never know it.

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He knows exactly what it feels like.

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And as we'll say later, that's why he can sympathize with us and our temptations.

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The temptation that Jesus faced, however, does give us an example as to how we can deal

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with temptation.

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And as we look at this example, we want to firm up our own daily dealing with temptation.

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In each case, the temptation that Jesus faced was to act independently of God his Father.

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And if there's any bottom line to sin, to temptation to sin, maybe that's it.

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Temptation allures us to act independently of God.

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Each temptation that Jesus faced is typical of those that you and I face.

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In other words, they represent categories of temptation.

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The first temptation was to physical appetite.

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An appeal to physical appetite for 40 days Jesus had fasted, 40 nights he had fasted,

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and now he was hungry.

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And so the devil made bread.

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There was probably the finest baker in all of Satan's kingdom came to make that bread,

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to make it as fresh and hot and the smell of that bread as alluring as possible to Jesus'

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physical senses.

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I shouldn't say that it was made.

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He wanted Jesus, didn't he, to make the bread?

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He says, you Lord make this bread.

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And the insight that we learn here is that it was God's will for Jesus to be hungry at

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this time.

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To be filled with what would be contrary to what the Father wanted for him.

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There are times when our appetites are appealed to and we say to ourselves, like this older

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person in the poem I read earlier, why not?

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Why not?

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Our appetites are ready.

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The drives are there, but it's not God's will and it's not God's time.

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God's will was for his son to be hungry at this point.

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And so Jesus responded to the devil by saying, it is written, man shall not live on bread

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alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

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And here of course he quotes from Deuteronomy chapter 8 verse 3.

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The context of that chapter is the recounting of Israel grumbling in the wilderness about

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manna.

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Complaining at God because of the manna.

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God had provided it for them and for their nourishment.

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They were not satisfied.

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You can read about the history of it in Numbers chapter 11.

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Deuteronomy 8 talks about that and then it gives this summary, man shall not live on

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bread alone.

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We do not need to live on the level of our physical appetites.

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Now please understand, God gives us physical appetites.

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It's not wrong to be hungry.

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It's not wrong to want intimacy.

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It's not wrong to want rest.

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These are needs, these are drives that God places within us.

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But to fulfill them outside of God's plan and God's will becomes sin.

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Satan knows how to appeal to your physical appetites and to mine.

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He has had thousands of years to study human beings.

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He has honed his ability to present temptation.

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And we live in an age when the world is shouting, it's okay.

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It's alright, everybody does it.

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Enjoy your immediate gratification.

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Get it now while you can.

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Jesus recognized the source of this appeal.

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He knew that it was not the Father's will and so he said no.

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No!

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Because it is written, there are some things more important than physical appetites.

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And that's the Word of God.

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Secondly the devil appealed to prideful glory.

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There was an appeal and attraction to prideful glory in this vision, if that's what it was.

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Or perhaps it was an actual journey.

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Because in some way Jesus was taken to the pinnacle of the temple and there Satan tempted

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him to throw himself down from there.

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Now there's some background on this in that the contemporary Jewish understanding was

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from Malachi 3 that the Messiah would come from the sky to the temple.

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And so what he was doing was, show yourself to be the Messiah.

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Come down from that pinnacle to the ground and surely the nation will receive you as

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the Messiah.

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But there was something else here in Jesus' heart.

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He knew that to do this might result in public acceptance, but again it wasn't God's time.

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To do it would be to act independently of God.

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To cast himself down from the temple would be to act presumptuously, with arrogance.

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The devil quoted Psalm 91, the only problem is he quoted it out of context.

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Because in the context of Psalm 91 it's dealing with those who take refuge in the Lord.

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And for Jesus to have succumbed to this temptation, he would not have been taking refuge in, trusting

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in the Lord.

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He would have been acting on his own.

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And so his response to Satan is to quote scripture again to him.

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This time from Deuteronomy chapter 6 and verse 16.

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The context of the discussion was Israel at Massa.

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When the nation was demanding a sign of the presence of God.

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And the bottom line of that experience is this, you shall not put the Lord your God

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to the test.

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Don't challenge God.

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Don't challenge God.

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Don't act presumptuously.

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So there was an appeal to prideful glory.

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Does Satan know how to do this?

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Of course he does.

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This is part of what the world is about us.

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Not only the lust of the flesh, it's the pride of life.

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Now all of us understand that.

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Because that's in the world.

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It's of the world.

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And Satan utilizes the world system with what it offers to appeal to us to put self first.

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To look for position and power.

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He appeals to our prideful glory.

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He sought to find that in Jesus.

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And Jesus said, no, no.

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And so he took Jesus to a very high mountain.

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He's getting desperate.

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He's putting everything on the table.

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So it seems.

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And he says, do you see all of these kingdoms and the glory of them?

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Now how he showed Jesus this we don't know that he did.

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And he said, it has been given to me to give it to whomever I wish.

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Luke tells us that Satan said that.

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Was he right?

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Well, in a sense, yes.

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He had usurped the rule of the world from Adam.

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And so he says, I can give it to whomever I wish.

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And if you will bow down and worship me, I will give everything here to you.

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Now of course if Jesus had worshiped Satan, that would have put Satan above Jesus.

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And Satan still would have had control of everything.

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But he appealed here to personal gain.

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You see Jesus knew that God's plan was for him to rule as Messiah.

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Psalm 2 says, I have sent my king upon my holy hill.

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But now Satan the usurper comes along and offers this kingdom now.

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We have an insight regarding this temptation.

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It is that to rule now would have been to circumvent the cross.

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Oh my, Satan wanted this badly.

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Anything to avoid that cross and the death of the Son of God.

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Jesus quoted Deuteronomy 6.13 in response to this appeal to personal gain.

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The context of Deuteronomy 16 is a command not to follow other gods as the covenant people

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of Jehovah.

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An historical example of when they did this was in the worship of the golden calf.

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You shall worship the Lord your God and serve him only says Deuteronomy.

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Satan offered the biggest price he could think of.

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Some of you may have watched it sometime in your past, the television game show that says

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and all this can be yours if the price is right.

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Satan knows the price to put out there.

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He knows the bait to put out there and here he put out his very best bait.

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He had nothing else superior to this.

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And he says this can be yours if the price is right.

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All you have to do is bow down and worship me.

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Don't you think that Satan knows what your price is?

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But oh the deception and oh the terrible consequences when we yield.

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As you think about where you've been this last week and the situations that you've

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encountered, how have you handled temptation?

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Does this area of your foundation need to be firmed up?

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There was an exasperated salesman who abandoned his car in a no parking zone and he left this

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note on the window of his abandoned car in the no parking zone.

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I've circled this block 20 times.

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I have an appointment and must keep it or lose my job, forgive us our trespasses.

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When he returned he found this note.

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I've circled this block 20 years.

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If I don't give you a ticket I'll lose my job.

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Lead us not into temptation.

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All the consequences when we yield to sin.

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There are just two or three lessons that I want to point out as we observe Jesus' temptation.

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Number one, we observe that temptation is not sin.

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Hebrews says Jesus has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.

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There are some of us who have been deceived by the devil into thinking that if we are

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tempted we've already sinned.

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The consequence of that is that we go around carrying a lot of guilt unnecessarily.

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To be tempted is not to sin.

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That first look is not the sin, it's the second look.

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It's when we begin to play with temptation that we begin making room for sin, for lust

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to be fulfilled.

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So don't feel guilty about temptations that you encounter, but neither indulge them because

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then you do become guilty.

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Secondly, we observe this, that we can resist temptation through Jesus Christ's help.

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Hebrews 2.18 says, for since he himself was tempted in that which he has suffered, he

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is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted.

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Let us therefore draw near, the writer goes on to say later, let us draw near with confidence

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to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and may find grace to help in the time

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of need.

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How did Jesus deal with temptation?

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First by discerning the nature of it.

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He was not deceived by it.

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Temptation is so often deceiving, at least to start with.

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But I think we also have to acknowledge the fact that sometimes it's not deceiving.

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Sometimes it presents itself and we see exactly what it is and we fool around with it.

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It's like a piece of candy that we slip into our mouths and we just begin to work it around.

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We taste that sweetness and we know exactly what we're doing, we know the consequences

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and we sin.

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But so often it is deceiving.

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What we need to do is to discern the nature of sin and temptation that is presented to

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us.

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Secondly, we see Jesus using the sword of God's spoken word.

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Ephesians 6, 8 to 17 says that it is the word of God, the spoken word of God that is the

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sword of God.

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And so we need the word of God to do battle with the enemy.

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That word sword is that little sword that you use in hand-to-hand combat.

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So you see yourself literally wrestling with temptation and using the sword of the word

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of God to strike it dead.

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And we see Jesus drawing upon the power of the Holy Spirit, which we need to do.

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Walk in the Spirit, says Paul, and you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.

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Unlike Jesus, you and I don't have to go looking for temptation because it finds us.

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And when it does, there are times when we sin.

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Maybe I should put it in the first person singular.

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Maybe you don't.

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But I think I know better.

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Because we do sin.

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And that's my third observation, that we have a Savior who will forgive when we fail.

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That's why He's appointed as a high priest.

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For it was fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled,

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separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens.

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Who does not need daily like those high priests of Israel to offer up sacrifices first for

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his own sins and then for the sins of the people, because this He did once for all when

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He offered up Himself.

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John writes, These things I write to you, my little children, that you stop sinning.

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But if any man sins, we have an advocate with the Father.

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See there's the reality.

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The ideal is that we stop sinning, that we don't listen to temptation.

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But there are times when all of us do, because we are still in the flesh and we still have

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sin as a principle and we fail to utilize the power of the Holy Spirit, the sword of

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the Spirit.

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We don't discern the temptation and we fall, and when we do, it is good to know we have

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a Savior who is there to forgive.

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If you are one who has succumbed to temptation and you are feeling heavy with guilt because

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of that, I want to encourage you today that if you are one who believes in the Lord Jesus

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Christ, He stands before the Father as an advocate on your behalf.

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He is your defense attorney as it were, to plead the fact that the price for your guilt

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has already been paid at the cross and you may be forgiven of your sin.

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When you and I flee temptation, let's leave no forwarding address.

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To master temptation means to let Jesus Christ master us.

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Is He mastering your life today?

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I hope He is.

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Is He your Savior at all?

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Have you trusted the Lord Jesus Christ?

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Have you believed that His death and resurrection was for you?

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And if you have come to that understanding and you have trusted the gospel according

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to Jesus that we heard sung about earlier, then are you living with Him as the master

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of your life?

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Because it is when He is master that temptation comes under control.

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You see, I've got a fuse that's about two and a half percent.

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When that current gets to that point, I can blow.

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But Jesus can be there with me to strengthen me in temptation and to deliver me, and He

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will be if He is master.

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Let's pray.

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Lord I thank you that in the temptations of life we have a Savior who understands and

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fully feels with us, sympathizes with us in them.

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We thank you that He is able to come to our aid.

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All of us have or will face temptation today.

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Lord Jesus be the master of our lives.

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Replace the fuse that we have in our humanity with your power so that when the temptation

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entices us, we will say no as Jesus did.

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Give us grace, I pray, that we may handle temptation as He did in the pattern that He

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left for us.

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May the result be that we will sin less.

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But Father, if there are those in need of the advocacy of the Lord Jesus, help them

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today to understand that He is the propitiation and the only satisfaction for sin.

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And may they come to the Savior today and find in Him the forgiveness that they need.

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In His name I pray, amen.