Common to Man (Part 2)

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Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author, Dr. Mike Avendrop. Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing

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Pastor Mike open the Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

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Now let's join Pastor Mike in progress as he preaches through the Scriptures verse by verse with No Compromise.

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No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful. He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability.

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But with the temptation, He will also provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it.

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Now one commentator said this is the most difficult passage in the entire book of 1 Corinthians. I just thought, it is?

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So much so that people say it shouldn't even really be here. If you read chapter 10 verses 12 and 14, skipping 13, it almost seems to flow better, they say.

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So if I read 10, 12, therefore be, let anyone who thinks that he stands, take heed lest he fall.

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Verse 14, therefore my beloved, flee from idolatry. Almost seems to make better sense, they're saying.

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But this is obviously here so that you could be encouraged. I don't always have to fall prey to my own emotions and my own heart.

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There can be victory in Christ Jesus. Sometimes, back in the Corinthians day, it wasn't as simple as, well,

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I'll stay away from the idol temple where they have feasts. You would go to your neighbor's house for dinner and they would have an idol there and present the food to the idol there and you could just get sucked into everything right there.

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Like this is hard. Where I turn, there's some temptation to do this and to do that and if I could soon eat the food, then

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I might be doing something with an idol, then along with idol worship is a sexual immorality. This is hard.

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I need help. Help me. So Paul, with great pastor's heart, gives the tender words of the spirit of God.

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You know what? God's there. God meets our temptation with his faithfulness.

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Here's a principle that you need to get into your mind. You don't have to sin. If you're a Christian, you don't have to sin.

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If you're an unbeliever, you have to sin. No choice. But Christians don't have to sin.

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And don't you like it? Just as God has set limits to the ocean, thus far and no farther, God has set limits to your temptation.

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This is as far as I'll allow you to be tempted. That's what he's going to talk about here. Testing comes upon Christians met with God's faithfulness.

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So what Paul is saying is this. No excuses for sin. No excuses for the

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Corinthians' idolatry. No excuses for immorality. No excuses for testing

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God. No excuses for complaining because God isn't going to give you more than you can handle.

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His faithfulness is there. He's set limits. And when you say, you know, I couldn't help myself, basically you're impugning

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God's character. No excuse for any compromising.

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And if you struggle with other things and you say, you know what, I struggle with sinful anger, with lying, with laziness, with pornography.

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There is no excuse for those because God's faithfulness is there. And this is a common demand.

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It's common to everyone. These things aren't new and novel and neither is God's faithfulness.

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One reformer said, therefore, once he has taken you under his own faithfulness, you have no need to be afraid.

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So long as you depend wholly on him. And here this great faithful God saying, there's an end to the trial.

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The trial won't last forever. Then temptation won't last forever. Failure is not inevitable.

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I like that. There's a way of escape. By the way, if you take a look at your text there, that way of escape, it means you're on a boat, you're on a sailboat and the wind's coming, the storm, the sea, the waves, and you begin to lighten your load because you've got to get out of this thing.

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That's the language here. Paul says, this isn't unique. God's faithfulness is going to be there.

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Great is thy faithfulness. Temptations are not irresistible. You say, well,

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I always do this and then I always fall into doing it. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one.

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Jesus taught his people to pray. Did you know you can count on the help of God when you're in a temptation?

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God isn't just a deist. He didn't just wind everything up. He isn't some open theist God and say, all right, hope you make it.

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He's worthy of all reliance. That's what that word faithful is. You ought to underline that. He is worthy of all reliance.

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You can depend upon him. He's trustworthy. He's fixed bounds for the temptation and says to Satan, if it's a satanic temptation, you can't tempt beyond this.

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And you could read Job 1 to see that. The opposite of succumbing to temptation is trusting

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God's faithfulness. He can be counted on to help. When you're tempted, it should be as simple as this.

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Let's just bring it down to a junior high level. When you're tempted, here's your response. Help. God help me.

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I'm being tempted. God, I know who you are and you begin to think about God's faithfulness. And then you're beginning to think rightly.

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It's like if you have a telescope and you put your eye to the lens, you see things far away but they seem up close.

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But if you flip that telescope around and you put your eye in the large glass, do you know what you see?

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Not just people who look like ants. But I've done it before and you see your own eyelid. You see your own eyeball and there it is.

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And so, thinking about God's faithfulness and rehearsing that is no different than my mother.

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When she was choking on her own fluids from lung cancer, she would say, when I really think

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I'm about at the end of my rope, I just begin to rehearse the attributes of God alphabetically. God's awesome.

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God's beautiful. God's compassionate. God's dependable. God's everlasting.

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God's faithful. And when you begin to think that way, it's much easier to then say no to the temptation or to turn off the computer screen or whatever your temptations happen to be, remembering the faithfulness of God.

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I once was told that you can solve every sanctification problem in your life by thinking about who God is.

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That's exactly what Paul says. I love the book of Revelation where Jesus is called.

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This is his name. He's like this for a name. Sometimes people call me reverend. Don't call me that.

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There's nothing in me to be revered. Somebody just said amen. It's true. Father.

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Four people can call me father. Nobody else. I'm no spiritual father. I didn't beget anybody. A minister.

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That's not bad. That just means servant. A pastor just means shepherd. People have different names. How about this name for God in the book of Revelation?

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Faithful and true. That's what he's called. That's his name. He's always called faithful. He's always called true.

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He's absolutely trustworthy. A lot different than the deceiving dragon, the false prophet, the false worshippers.

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God is faithfulness. Psalm 89. Thy faithfulness surrounds thee. Psalm 36.

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Thy faithfulness reaches to the skies. Isaiah 11. And faithfulness the belt about his waist.

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All language, poetical language to say God is faithful. Your trials are great. God's put a limit to those things.

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And trust in the faithful God. You don't have to sin the way you've always sinned.

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Now, I have two ways to go for the rest of the time. When you talk about temptation, in this passage,

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I could say to you, let me give you four steps to overcome temptation. Would that be good? That'd be fine.

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Sermon. How does the Bible say we overcome temptation? I just gave you one matter of fact, is reflect on the non -uniqueness of your own problem.

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It's a common problem. And reflect on God. That would be two ways of something for you to do. But I'm gonna do it a different way.

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Since I do fall to temptation, my heart longs for somebody who doesn't fall to temptation.

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My heart longs for someone who's been tempted more than I have and never sinned. So when you study something like temptation,

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I could either tell you these are three ways to never be tempted. Or I could say, why don't we look at the Savior Christ Jesus?

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And then even when you fail in temptation, you have a representative and you have the righteousness of another who never failed.

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Now some were here a few Sunday nights ago when I taught a little bit about this, but if you were here, you're not going to mind because this passage, this passage here that we're going to look at now where Jesus was tempted but didn't sin, is really, to use

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Texas terms, a barn burner. So let's go to Matthew chapter 4. Matthew 4.

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How do I want to end the sermon practically is not to tell you these are four reasons not to succumb to temptation, but to show you

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Christ Jesus in Matthew. This passage in Matthew chapter 4 about Jesus being tempted by Satan has nothing to do with you learning that when you're in temptation, you say,

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I'm going to quote Deuteronomy. You should have the Bible in you when you're going through temptation, and that's a good second principle.

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But the principle that's at the top is this, Israel was tempted, they failed.

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Adam and Eve were tempted, they failed. The human race, if you were transported back to the garden and put there in probation, you would have failed.

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So who's going to succeed? Who's not going to fail? We live in this default failure world.

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The first Adam and all of us in Adam have failed. We are failures. We need somebody to succeed.

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Who's going to please God? Who's going to honor God? Who can stand in our place? Who could be our mediator? Who could be our intercessor?

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Who could be an advocate? If they fail, then they can't help us. And so what Matthew does is he says there's a king,

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King Jesus. And when Israel failed, and when Adam failed, and when Eve failed, somebody doesn't fail.

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Let me add one more. And when you fail, you have a savior. How would you like to look back in your life and add up all the temptations you've ever had been tempted with, and then also add in all the times when you've fallen to those temptations?

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You just look at those and you think, how could there be any hope of heaven? How could

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I just stand before God and say, yeah, God, I deserve to go to heaven? We would be undone.

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So when you look at sin in the Bible, one of the things you have to make sure you do is make sure you quickly look at the savior.

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Here's Christ Jesus, and he's just gotten baptized. Remember, heaven has opened? Heaven has opened.

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This is my beloved son in whom I am what? Well pleased. And now one commentator says in Matthew chapter four, now hell opens.

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Now hell opens. And Matthew chapter four is going to show us this battle royale, the temptation of Christ, our representative, fully human.

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So as he was tempted and never gave in ever, he is our stead now. He cloaks us with that righteousness.

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And so the hope for sinners who are tempted in sin is this great King, King Jesus.

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And once Jesus is working, Satan is soon to be found. Jesus is inaugurated into his pastoral ministry, his public ministry in chapter three.

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And now Satan's right there. Then Jesus was led up by the spirit into the wilderness,

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Matthew four, to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting 40 days and 40 nights, he was hungry.

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Luke says he ate nothing. And the same spirit of God that descended upon him like a dove now drives him in the wilderness to be tempted by Satan.

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The spirit of God knowing this has to be done. Adam failed, Eve failed, Israel failed. Who will not fail and succeed?

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I don't know about you, but if I don't eat for a while, I can kind of get crabby. I can kind of get moody.

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I can kind of get hungry. I remember one guy in Louisville I met, and he said,

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I'm kind of hungry. So maybe you get hungry too, but all of a sudden my blood sugar,

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I was going to say my blood alcohol levels get all messed up. And you have no excuse when you sin because you haven't eaten or slept or because you've got a headache.

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But there is a contributing factor and as Moses fasted, as Elijah fasted, now we have

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Jesus fasting, staining from food. It's a perfect moment for Satan's bidding.

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And the tempter came, even the name, the tempter came and said to him, if you're the son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.

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Jesus, you're hungry, it's no big deal just to eat, you must be starving.

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You know, Jesus, I don't know if Satan knew this or not, but soon enough Jesus is going to be making bread for thousands of people, for the 4 ,000 men, for the 5 ,000 men.

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Nothing wrong with making a little food out of nothing. You're God's son and you're hungry.

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What a God you must have. Your father must be really a good provider. Show me a kid without food and I'll show you a father who doesn't provide.

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Born in a barn, God's son. Well, Satan didn't know that Jesus would not go farther than the will of the

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Father, that the triune God is accomplishing redemption for us, would not have been right for Christ to do this.

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Come on, Jesus, just get your way apart from the will of the Father. He could have done it.

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Theoretically, and what does Jesus say? There's something more important than food. Verse 4, but he answered, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

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I am not going to act independently from the Father's will. It's better to obey

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God and die of hunger, from hunger. It's better to suffer. And he quotes Deuteronomy.

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And he quotes a context that God was allowing Israel to be hungry, that he might teach them self -sufficiency, no, the opposite, and then give them manna.

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Yet they failed, they grumbled. Something's more important than food. Oscar Wilde said, I can resist everything except temptation.

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Thomas Brooks says, Satan promises the best, but pays with the worst. He promises honor and pays with disgrace.

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He promises pleasure and pays with pain. He promises profit and pays with loss. He promises life and pays with death.

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Well, Satan's not done yet. By the way, Jesus has succeeded. Aren't you glad? What would you have done? Adam fails,

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Eve fails, Israel fails, we fail. Jesus, round one, succeeded.

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But it's not over. Temptation number two. Let's presume on God's love and care.

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Oh, I guess you still think God loves you even though you're hungry. So let's presume on that and test God, verses five and six.

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Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him up on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, if you're the son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, he will command the angels, or his angels, concerning you, and on their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against the stone.

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Oh, okay, Jesus, you're gonna trust God even if you die and you're hungry and you suffer? Then let's just show how much you really trust him.

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How much do you really trust him? He takes Jesus to what we think is the southeast corner of the temple complex.

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Very tall, tradition said, if you were the Messiah, you could stand up there and jump off of it, and many people did.

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Oh, okay, Jesus, you don't really need bread. Something's more important than bread. The Bible's more important than bread, so let me give you a couple verses.

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That's what Satan does. I wonder, on a side note, do you know the Bible better than Satan does? Do you know the

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Bible well enough so that when Satan is playing around with it through the hypocritical, lie -speaking, false teachers on television, you go,

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I know that's wrong? Here's a verse for you, and he quotes,

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Satan does, Psalm 91. He's quoting the Bible to Jesus. That's kind of crazy to me, except he does two things to the word of God, and it's what false teachers have always done.

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He admits something, and he twists something. So you can either add, here he admits, omits, and then he twists.

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He omits in all your ways, so let me just read you Psalm 91. He will give you his angel's charge concerning you to guard you in all your ways.

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Satan left that out. And now what Satan also does as he messes around with Psalm 91, a passage that means you should trust

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God, he takes it to mean you ought to test God. So a verse that means trust

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God with all your heart turns into test God with all your heart. This is what we call a complete switcheroo in hermeneutics, or as Todd Friel says, this is an exegesis, this is lack of Jesus.

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Do what you want, God will protect you. By the way, as we're going through this,

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I've forgotten about me, I've forgotten about my back, I've forgotten about my cough,

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I've forgotten about my bills, and I've even forgotten about my temptations, haven't you? That's exactly what happens, to look at the greatness of King Jesus.

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That's why you ought to read your Gospels every day, at least some of them. God will protect you no matter what,

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Satan says to Jesus. Jesus said to him, verse seven, again it is written, you shall not put the

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Lord your God to the test. It's written, now Deuteronomy 6 comes out, don't test the

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Lord. This is right from where the Israelites put the Lord to the test, and they demanded that Moses give water, and they failed, and here

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Jesus succeeds. And now we come to the third temptation, and now Satan gets the big guns out.

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First two were big, but now we get even more.

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And by the way, now Satan, the duck and jive is all gone. No disguising things, no beating around the bush, no camouflage, just this is blatant.

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Let's get to the bottom of everything. And Satan is basically going to say, glory before suffering, crown before cross.

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You deserve it. You deserve a break today. Verse eight, again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.

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How did it happen? Real vision, it doesn't matter, but here, Rome, Egypt, Greece, Persia, Jerusalem, everything.

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The God of this age is showing Jesus. And he said to him something, all these

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I will give you if you will fall down and worship me. I'll just give you these, just genuflect one time, bow down one time, curtsy one time, just one little fast one.

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And of course Jesus knew what he was going to face later in ministry, didn't he? Did he know about the garden of Gethsemane?

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Did he know about wrath bearing on the cross for three hours and the separation from God? My God, my

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God, why have you forsaken me? Just take it now, Jesus, you're worth it.

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So there's only one catch, it wasn't the father's will. The ruler of the world says, it's all yours.

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And what does Jesus do? Israel failed, Eve failed, Adam failed, we failed.

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Verse 10, then Jesus said to him, be gone, Satan, for it is written, you shall worship the

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Lord your God and him only shall you serve. Quoting Deuteronomy 6 again, in the

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Greek it means pack it up, pal. Israel was in the wilderness, they didn't do the right thing.

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God alone deserves worship. And so what happened in verse 11, then the devil left him and behold, angels came and were ministering to him.

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Don't miss this. The very verses that Satan twisted by perversion and omitting, now the spirit of God uses in the real way.

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How about that? The angels came and they began to minister to him. God's perfect plan to have the angels come.

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It's an imperfect tense, by the way. It was a long time of ministry because it was a very intense time of temptation.

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Amazing. The angels ministering to Jesus, out there for 40 days, and the angels ministered to him.

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So, what's the point? The point is not when you're tempted, quote Deuteronomy. It would be good.

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I like that. All three from Deuteronomy. What's the point? Here comes the king, King Jesus.

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Ever wonder why there's a genealogy in the book of Matthew? Because kings have to have credentials.

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Is this from the royal line? Can he rightfully come to the throne? Ever wonder why the king, small k, tries to kill the baby king,

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Jesus? Because that's exactly what happens in the courts of the world, where one king kills another, kill the baby.

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Ever wonder why John the Baptist comes before the king to say, behold, there's a great king coming? Because you had a spokesperson who would come and say, here comes the king.

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And now we are about to hear from the king in the Sermon on the Mount, but before that, will this king measure up where everyone else has failed?

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So if you've failed in temptation, Jesus hasn't.

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If you've sinned with anger or lust or idolatry or immorality,

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Jesus never did. That's good news for us. That's why the gospel's for Christians.

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It's not, well, just accept Jesus in your heart and go your merry way. It's Jesus died for you and confess it with your heart and believe in your heart that he was raised from the dead and never forget it.

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Never ever forget it because if you do forget it, take heed, you're gonna fall soon.

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When we look at redemptive history, we see Jesus is the qualified Messiah who never gave in to temptation.

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And do you know, if you have a temptation building in your life, once you give in, it's done. No more temptation because you've done the deed.

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But for Jesus, tempted, tempted, tempted, tempted, never having the release of a sinful disobedient act because he always obeyed.

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What's the point of Matthew chapter four? Not how to overcome temptation because we're not found in Matthew chapter four.

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You look at Matthew chapter four and like a yearbook, where am I? I quick got my yearbook when I was in high school and I looked in the yearbook and I immediately went to A, there

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I was. And then I wanted to think to myself, you know what? I didn't know many of the drama people in the photograph club, so I don't think

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I'm gonna be in. So then I had to go to the basketball team, there I was. I went to the football team, there I was. I went to the math club,

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I was in that. I went to Fellowship of Christian Athletes, wasn't saved but I was in that.

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Where am I in this book? Where are you in Matthew four? The good news is you're not in there because if you were, it would be failed.

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But Jesus is there and he succeeded and we have a great captain. God's faithful.

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Read your Old Testaments. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

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Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 8 .30 and 11 AM and Sunday evenings at 6

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PM. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston, Massachusetts. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org

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or by phone at 508 -835 -3400. The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff, or management.