Have We Trials and Temptations

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It's good to see everybody.
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I want to invite you to take out your Bibles if you would.
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We're going to be back in James this morning, James chapter 1.
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We have been going reasonably slow through the text, only taking a few verses at a time.
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And we're going to do the same thing this morning.
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And the title of today's lesson is, Have We Trials and Temptations? That's actually taken from a hymn.
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Anybody know what hymn that's from? Have We Trials and Temptations is a line from a hymn.
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Does anybody remember? I remember, but I just can't call it out.
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What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear.
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What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer.
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Yep, that's it.
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Now that's the first...
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Well, it's been around longer than Chris Tomlin, but he did sing it.
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But yeah, that's the first verse.
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The second verse starts with the phrase, Have We Trials and Temptations? And that's where the title of today comes from, because today we're going to talk about the difference between a temptation and a test, and a trial and a temptation.
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And there is a distinction that the Bible makes, and in the text today it's going to say something that God never does.
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It says God never tempts.
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And yet we know from just a cursory reading of the Bible that there are times where it says God puts us to the test.
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And so what is the difference between a trial, a temptation, and a test? And so that's the answer we're going to try to come to today.
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So let's pray.
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Father, I thank You for Your Word.
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I thank You for the opportunity to study it and be with these men.
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I look forward to this every week.
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And I thank You for allowing me to be here.
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I thank You for all that is done in this ministry.
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And I pray for these men, Lord.
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I pray that the Word that is given today would be to them something that stirs their heart to a deeper faith.
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Lord, those who are believers, that this might help them in their walk.
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And for those who have not yet bowed the knee to Jesus Christ, that today might be the day that their hearts are stirred, that their hearts are changed, Lord, to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
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For there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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And at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to Your glory.
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And we pray it in His name.
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Amen.
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Alright, James chapter 1 beginning at verse 12.
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And it's interesting because it begins with the word blessed.
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And I don't want to start exegeting already, but if you remember another place in the Bible that begins with the word blessed, what we call the Beatitudes.
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Yeah, Matthew 5.
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Jesus said, blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are this, blessed are that.
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Well, this is another place where we see it starts with the word blessed.
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And it said, blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love Him.
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Let no one say when he is tempted, I am being tempted by God.
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For God cannot be tempted with evil, and He Himself tempts no one.
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But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.
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Then desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death.
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And may God add His blessing to the reading of His word.
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Now, last week in our study, we looked at somewhat of a paradox.
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A paradox, if you remember, is when you have two things that seem to contradict one another, but upon further examination they don't really contradict each other, but at the beginning they seem to look like they do.
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And last week we looked at when James talks about the rich man and the poor man.
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He said the rich man should...
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Are you asking a question? Okay, I'll finish and then I'll take a question.
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But he said the rich man should exalt in his humility, and the poor man exalt in his exaltation.
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And the idea is that what we said, we said when a poor person comes to Christ, he's exalted out of his state of lowliness, and when a rich person comes to Christ, he's humbled because where he was rich in this world, he's brought down.
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And so there's a paradox there.
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The rich become poor and the poor become rich, and we're all level at the foot of the cross.
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It's like a teeter-totter that balances itself out.
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There's no man who comes to the cross with anything to bring Christ.
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We come as receivers, not givers.
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Alright, brother, we're going to ask a question.
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Yes, that's paradoxical.
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What does it mean? It's not saying that God would, obviously, tempt us.
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But there are testings that will come.
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Is that what you're referring to there? I'm sorry, please continue.
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I don't mean to jump ahead.
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Why would He? I know, like you said, He doesn't lead us into temptation because it's not of His will, but why is He even in there if that's the case? Well, that is a difficult question and one that I will say that has been asked more times than I can remember.
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And my answer has always been sort of what I already said, is that God doesn't lead us into temptation, but He does bring testing.
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And with every test, and you kind of jumped ahead of me, because with every test comes the opportunity for temptation.
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And we pray that we're asking that God lead us out of that.
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Lead us not into is a way of saying lead us out of.
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And it's just a vernacular way of saying the same thing a different way.
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Oh, now we've got a hand.
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Yes, go ahead.
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Please define vernacular.
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Oh, vernacular.
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It's a way of speaking.
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No, it's a use of language.
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Like when I, in the South, we have a vernacular.
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Like if I said, all y'all, come on.
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Y'all is something that you wouldn't hear if you were in New York.
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You'd hear you all or something like that.
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You guys, right, from the North.
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That's vernacular.
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That's a type of speaking that's related to a particular area or a particular time.
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Jesus said, verily, verily I say unto thee.
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That's not something we say today.
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We don't normally.
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Yes, yes.
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Yes, sometimes it's determined by location.
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Sometimes it's determined by culture.
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Sometimes it's determined by, like we said, like North-South type thing.
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And yes, vernacular means a way of speaking that's specific to a certain time or a certain area or a certain culture.
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Okay, now I saw another hand.
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Was there another? Okay, all right, we're good.
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So we looked at the paradox last week.
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And the paradox was about the rich man and the poor man and how we understand those two.
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Well, today we're looking at another paradox.
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And that is the paradox of the difference between a trial and a temptation and a test.
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And the difficulty resides in the fact that the Bible sort of gives us confusing categories.
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Now, I'm not saying that the Bible is confusing, even though it might sound like what I just said.
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What I'm saying is that the Bible will use language that seems to overlap.
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And when it comes to the word trial, temptation, and test, those words are overlapping in Scripture.
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And we have to use context to determine what's being said.
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And how I want to do that, I want to show you in the Old Testament.
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If you have your Bibles, hold your place in James, but turn to Genesis 22.
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Now, I can't do that because I only have my New Testament.
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I brought my Greek New Testament, so I don't have a whole Bible.
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Oh, looky there, thank you.
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And it's a King James.
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God bless you, son.
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Because I want to show you how this actually is in the King James where a lot of people get confused.
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So if you want to open to Genesis 22.
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Now, if you remember Genesis 22.
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I don't know why my voice cracked.
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You remember Genesis 22? If I told you what happened, you immediately, if you've been in the Bible any time, you'll remember this is where God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son.
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God commands Abraham to sacrifice his son.
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Probably one of the strangest texts in all the Bible.
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That God would command a man who is supposed to be His man, a person who is called the friend of God, to take the one thing that he'd been promised.
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Because you remember, this is the thing.
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Abraham was an old man, he didn't have any children.
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He had an adopted son named Eliezer of Damascus.
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And then later on, he had a relationship with his wife's handmaiden, Hagar, and they had Ishmael.
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And so he had an adopted child, and he had a child that wasn't with his wife.
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And so he had two children, but neither one of them were the ones God had promised.
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Finally, in his old age, God gave his wife a son.
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And now God says, kill him.
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You've waited a whole lot, a hundred years, you've waited almost a century for this gift, and I've given you this gift, and you love him.
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Now, you're going to sacrifice him.
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It's a difficult story.
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And I believe it's true.
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When I say story, don't let that make you think I think it's not true.
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I think it's a difficult reality.
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But I want you to read it in this.
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I'm going to read the King James.
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I'm so glad you have this, because in the King James, I want you to listen for why I would even bring this up.
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Verse 1, And it came to pass after these things that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham.
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And he said, Behold, here I am.
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Now, we're not going to read the whole story.
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You obviously, I heard the groaning.
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You obviously see where the issue is.
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Right? Because when we read the book of James, it says God does not tempt.
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And yet, we open up Genesis 22, verse 1, and it says it came to pass that God did tempt Abraham.
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Now, I didn't come to you today to make a contradiction in Scripture.
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I came to teach you how to understand this.
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Yes, you had your hand up.
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I'm sorry.
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That's the King James, right? Yes, it is.
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And what does yours say, sir? Thank you.
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Thank you.
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And that's why I told you the paradox.
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Understanding the difference, right? We have in the King James.
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Go ahead.
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Are we on the spot that I'm looking for here? Because verse 12 in my King James says, Blessed is the man that endures.
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Genesis 22.
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Huh? Okay, so we're in something.
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Okay, never mind.
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Yeah, I'm sorry.
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I'll get back to you with that by the end of the class.
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Okay, all right.
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All right.
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Well, but the most important thing I'm pointing out is if you only had a King James Bible, let's say you're in the 1600s, and even though there were other English translations, the King James Bible was not the first English translation.
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The first English translation was translated by Wycliffe in the 1300s, 300 years before the King James Bible.
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Then you had the Geneva Bible, and there's several other English Bibles that came before the King James.
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This is the first authorized by the king.
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It was a state Bible.
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The Puritans didn't even like the King James because they considered it to be a state Bible, and they were sort of a separation of church and state.
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They used the Geneva Bible.
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The first Bible to come to America was not the King James.
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It was the Geneva Bible.
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But anyway, the King James Bible had this language of temptation.
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And so there was a confusion.
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For those who are maybe King James only, they say we only use this.
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This is the Word of God to modern man, and some people believe that.
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And so they come to this point and they say, okay, now we have an issue.
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Because in one text it says God did tempt, and in another text it says God does not tempt.
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And in that we have what is called the law of non-contradiction.
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This is a philosophy law.
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It's a law of philosophy or a law of logic that you cannot have something and not have something at the same time and in the same relationship.
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You can't be here and not be here at the same time and in the same relationship.
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That is called the law of non-contradiction.
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We understand that, right? So God cannot tempt and not tempt because He would be contradicting Himself.
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We understand, right? And that would create a contradiction.
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And if God contradicts Himself, then He lies.
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And the Bible says God is not a liar.
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So we have to deal with the issue of the text.
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And I think you've already jumped ahead of me, which is fine.
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I love it when you guys jump ahead a little.
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The first issue is the issue of language.
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I do think that the Word in Hebrew in chapter 22 of Genesis is better translated to test.
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You were going to say, brother, go ahead.
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Yeah, it's to test.
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And then they have one word in Hebrew.
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Yeah, and that's the thing.
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The word tempt can have two different meanings depending how we understand it.
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And so everything is determined not only by the use of language, but by the use of context, right? And context determines so much for us.
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Did God test Abraham? Yes.
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Oh yeah.
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Absolutely.
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But the question then becomes, in the language of temptation, how we understand temptation, did God tempt Abraham? Not in the way that we would understand temptation, but what is the difference between a test and a temptation? You're glad we asked.
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I'm glad.
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No.
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Oh, okay.
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You're glad we asked.
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Yeah, I'm glad.
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What's the difference? That's a good one.
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Brother, go ahead.
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My version of a test is, if I ask God for something, and He don't give it to me when I want it, would He be testing my faith to see what I want? Well, that's a good example of how tests come, for sure.
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Absolutely.
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I wouldn't disagree.
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Yes, sir? Temptation is like dangling sin in front of you and trying to stay away from it, right? Testing is hearing the word of God and seeing if you're going to carry it out.
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Sure.
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Yeah, I would.
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I'm not disagreeing at all.
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I'm going to explain it a little differently, but that's good.
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Yes, sir? It's kind of going by what you said.
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Tempting is that situation and seeing if you're drawing yourself to it.
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The testing is seeing you through a period, seeing you through a situation the entire way through.
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Absolutely.
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I want to ask you this, and this is why I don't disagree with you guys, but I want to throw this as a thought.
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Can the same thing be both a trial or, excuse me, I'm going to use the word test and temptation.
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Can the same thing be a test and a temptation? Yeah.
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I think so.
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What's the difference? I think there is a difference, but I think it's a difference of motivation.
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A test is an opportunity to do right, and a temptation is a desire to do wrong.
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A test is an opportunity to do something good, while with that opportunity to do something good, there's also an opportunity to do the opposite.
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And the temptation is the desire to do the opposite.
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God does not put within us the desire to do the opposite because it's already there.
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Going back to James, what is he saying? He says, the desire to do the opposite comes from you.
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The temptation comes from within you.
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The test is God's opportunity to do something good, and the desire to not do it is from within me.
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As Augustine said, he said, Lord, command what You will, and give me the ability to do what You command.
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Because outside of You giving me that ability, I'm going to want to do the opposite.
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My flesh is going to want to go the other way.
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Yes, sir.
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Yellow shirt.
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Can I share something? Please, yeah.
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1 Corinthians 10.13 No temptation has ever taken you except what is common to mankind.
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And God is faithful, and He will not let you be tempted beyond what you are tempted.
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He will also provide a way out so you can endure.
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I love teaching with you guys.
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That's literally right there printed in my notes.
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I bring one little half page of notes, and that's right there.
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That's absolutely right.
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That's absolutely right.
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With every time we have a temptation, with every thing that comes up, God gives us that avenue, an opportunity to do the right thing.
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Right? So we have from God opportunities every day to do what's right.
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And every day we have the flesh which wants us to do wrong.
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So God is not tempting us to do wrong, but He's opening up avenues for us to do right.
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When God took Abraham on that mountain, and He said, sacrifice your son, in every way that we can imagine, that seems to us to be the wrong thing to do.
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None of us who have children would want to sacrifice our child.
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None of us would want to hurt our babies.
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None of us would want to hurt each other's babies.
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So to us, that seems absolutely wrong.
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The whole story seems out of character for God.
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And yet, we know Abraham heard the voice of God, there was a command there, and there was an opportunity to do right.
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But the right thing was the hard thing.
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The right thing was the thing that didn't seem right.
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Somebody punches you.
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It feels right to punch them back.
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It's hard to turn the other cheek.
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I know that's a drastically different example, but it is.
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The right thing is often the hard thing to do.
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The right thing is the difficult thing to do.
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And God gives us these opportunities.
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Yes, sir? Yes, I would say a test is an opportunity to do right.
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And that comes from God.
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God tests.
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He gives us opportunities to do right.
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But a temptation is the desire to not do right.
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The desire to do wrong.
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And that does not come from God.
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The desire to do wrong comes from us.
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Everywhere in the Scripture.
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Think back to the story of Joseph with his brothers.
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When his brothers were brought to him, and he says, what you meant for evil, God meant for good.
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Right? The meaning for evil, the temptation, the desire to do wrong was from within them.
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And that's his point.
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You're the one with the evil heart, not God.
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So your evil heart is what draws you away from what God wants you to do.
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That doesn't mean God doesn't give you tests.
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He does.
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And if you want to call those tests temptations, my response to you would be, God is not the one trying to get you to do wrong.
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You are.
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And I am.
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Let me say this.
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Every time I point my finger this way, three of them point back at me.
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If I point at you, I got three of them that aim at me.
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There's no man in this room that doesn't absolutely depend upon the grace of God for everything.
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And that's me, and you, and everybody.
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Yes, sir.
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Can I also read something? Please.
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Alright.
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Sure.
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Romans 7.
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It says, Did that which is good then bring death to me? If I know that it was sin producing death in me, through the blood of His good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, the commandment might become sinful, for I do not understand my own actions, for I do not do what I want, but I do everything that I hate.
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The temptation part of it.
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Yeah, yeah.
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We know what's right.
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And we have opportunities to do right.
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Every day we wake up, we have opportunities to do right or do wrong.
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God gives us these opportunities to do right.
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What is the temptation to do wrong? It's from within.
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You are a fallen son of Adam.
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Right? Which means you have flesh.
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You are wrapped in flesh.
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And your flesh is corrupt.
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In fact, one of the verses that people often don't think about in this regard is Matthew 26, 41.
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Jesus said, Watch and pray that you fall not into temptation.
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The spirit is willing, but the flesh is what? Weak.
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Notice the word temptation is in that passage.
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A lot of people only think of the spirit is willing and the flesh is weak.
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But Jesus said, Watch that you fall not into temptation.
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That's the context.
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Because your spirit is willing, but your flesh is going to want the easy way.
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The flesh is going to want that which makes it feel good.
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It's going to want the quick satisfaction, the easy answer.
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Yes, sir? You walk in the store.
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It was your choice to go in the store.
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Well, no.
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I want to be honest with the answer.
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If I see a beer, for me it's not a temptation.
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Because it's just never been for me.
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Alcohol is not a temptation for me.
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So it depends, I think, on the individual whether it's going to be a temptation or a test.
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But here's the thing.
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The same thing can be both.
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It's a test, but where does the temptation to fail the test come from? From you, right? That's where temptation comes from.
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And I think if we go back to James, that's the point.
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Look with me very quickly over here at verse 14.
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But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.
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His own desire creates the luring.
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He's lured and enticed by his own desire.
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So if alcohol is your particular battle, right? If alcohol is your particular battle, then you know it's a temptation for you.
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Right? And it might not be.
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Maybe sex is your drug of choice.
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Maybe drugs is your drug of choice.
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Maybe theft is your drug of choice.
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Maybe being mean and hateful and spiteful is your drug of choice.
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Some people get off on everything, right? There's all kinds of things people enjoy that are just wrong because it satisfies their flesh.
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Some people just like being buttholes.
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Excuse the expression, but you understand what I mean.
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Yes, sir.
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Okay, so is it like, right? Like, I love cupcakes, bro.
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I'm tempted to grab one of these cupcakes.
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Right now, I want one really bad.
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But I'm not supposed to eat the plums.
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So, test, is the cupcake sitting in there? It could be.
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And me not grabbing it? Yeah.
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But the temptation is I want it.
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Yeah, yes.
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That's a good example, actually.
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Because you want it, but that want isn't something God is putting in you.
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God is not putting a want in you.
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That's there.
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That's the flesh that wants it.
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The temptation is the want.
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But the test is, will you give in to the want? I know this is difficult, guys.
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That's why I call it a paradox.
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I know this is something that's hard to understand.
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But it can be both.
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The cupcake can be the test.
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Are you going to do it? And it can be from within you, a temptation, I want to do it.
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Right? Are you tempted by things you shouldn't do? Yeah.
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Huh? That's why it's kind of like a temptation in general.
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And that's why we identify it as a temptation, right? And again, I don't know what your particular temptation is.
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Cupcake's probably one of mine, too.
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But...
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But...
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Now that I know they're there, I'm thinking about them.
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But...
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But as I mentioned earlier, you know, for me, it's never been alcohol.
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But I have certain things that do tempt me.
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There are certain things I have to say no to the flesh.
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You know, probably the place I sin the most, and I mean, I'm sharing with you guys.
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The place I sin the most is in my thought life.
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You know, I've heard, I've said this to people.
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I've said, you know, people think, oh, you're a pastor, you're a good man.
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If you could take just my thoughts and put them on a reel-to-reel and put it on a screen, I wouldn't have any friends.
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I wouldn't be able to maintain relationships with people if they knew what just happened between my ears.
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The hateful things that I thought, the thoughts of lust and anger and greed, and that's all in here.
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I hope that, you know, you can at least relate a little.
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I'm a scumbag too.
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Yeah, that's right.
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I think it's like a big battlefield in general.
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Like all those thoughts that come to mind is what brings up the temptations.
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It's what brings up the...
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And that's why Paul tells us take every what? Every thought.
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Because it's our thoughts that lead to our wants, and our wants lead to our actions.
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Right? So this is why coveting is so dangerous.
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You know, one of the Ten Commandments.
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Do not covet your neighbor's ox.
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Do not covet your neighbor's donkey.
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Do not covet your neighbor's wife or his land or his house.
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Why? Because when we see it and we let that entertain in our mind that we deserve it more than he does or we want it more than he should have it, and we go get it, whether it's through theft or whether it's through manipulation or it's whatever, because that's temptation becoming action.
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This is why he talks about when it's full grown, it leads to death.
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Right? Don't over-spiritualize that.
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Just understand what he's saying.
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Sin begins in the heart, and then it grows out into an action, and it leads to death.
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Death.
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Absolutely, brother.
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That's 100% correct.
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Yeah, because that's what happens.
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Our temptation leads to action and those actions are sinful because they're based on the wrong motivation.
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Remember what I said earlier.
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It's all about motivation, right? When God gives you a test, it's a motivation to do right.
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Here's an opportunity to do right.
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And your flesh says, but I want to do wrong.
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Who's going to win the battle? What's going to win? Right? It's a toss-up.
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It's a toss-up.
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But that's the battle, right? And that's what James is talking about.
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James is talking about the battle.
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Here's a few things.
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I have five thoughts that I want to give you.
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You don't have to write them down if you don't want to, but if you want to, maybe this is helpful.
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Five just thoughts on this subject.
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Number one, from creation, man has been seeking to find someone to blame for his sin.
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Ever since creation.
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Think about this.
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I want you to go back in your mind to Adam and Eve.
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Eve goes and she is tempted.
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Well, she's tempted by the serpent.
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Right? He tries to get her to do bad.
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Are there external things that tempt us? Yeah, there are people who want you to do bad because they're doing bad and they want to partner.
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Because they're miserable and they want you to be miserable.
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Very few people want what's best for you.
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That's how you know who your friends are.
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Your friends will tell you when you ought not do something.
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The people who don't care about you are always trying to get you what you ought not do to do it with them because they're doing it and they ought not do it.
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It's the reality of the world.
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It's the very few people who care enough about you to tell you you ought not do something.
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The world wants you to get involved with what it's already doing.
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So Eve goes.
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Satan tempts her.
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She takes it back.
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She gives it to her husband.
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He eats.
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And then they both realize that what? They're naked.
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They be naked.
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Right, they are naked.
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So they cover themselves with fig leaves.
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Here comes God.
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You hear His footsteps in the cool of the day.
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How that worked out, I don't know.
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I tend to think it was a pre-incarnated visitation of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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You say, why do you think that? Because John 1 says no one has ever seen the Father.
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Right? But they saw God.
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He was walking in the cool of the day.
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So I tend to think that's Jesus.
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I believe it was Jesus in Genesis 18 when He was eating with Abraham too.
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It said the Lord ate with Abraham.
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I think that's Jesus.
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So that's a whole other conversation about Christology.
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But the point is, He was there.
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Adam and Eve were talking to Him.
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And He said, actually, He said, where are you? Like He didn't know.
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Where are you? We hid ourselves because we were naked.
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How did you know you were naked? Because prior to eating the fruit, their nakedness was not a problem.
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Prior to eating the fruit, it wasn't that they didn't realize they didn't have anything on.
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Not having anything on wasn't a problem because there wasn't any kind of wrong feelings between them.
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There wasn't any type of shame.
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Sin brings shame and it brings the desire to cover up.
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That's what Adam and Eve pictures.
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As soon as they broke God's law, they become inhibited about themselves and they covered themselves.
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They didn't want to look at each other.
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They didn't want God to look at them.
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So they covered up.
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And God comes and says, where are you? I'm here.
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You're naked.
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How do you know you're naked? Did you eat of the tree? Again, like God doesn't know.
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This is an opportunity to give me your confession.
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Tell the truth.
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And what does Adam say? Yes, sir, I made a mistake.
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No, he didn't.
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He said, the woman whom thou hast given me.
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Notice, two fingers.
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The woman whom you gave me.
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So who's his fingers pointing at? He's pointing one at her and one at God.
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What's that? That's right.
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But he's pointing at Eve.
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He's pointing at God.
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Everything to get it off of him.
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We want to blame God for temptation.
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Why? Because we don't want to bear the responsibility ourselves.
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We don't want to say it was me who did it.
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Let me tell you something.
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I learned something this week.
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He's so funny.
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I want to share with you.
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I hope this doesn't take such a hard right turn that I can't get back.
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But I've got to tell you this.
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We have become incapable as a society for blaming people for their own ills.
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We blame everything else rather than the person.
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And I'll give you an example.
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And this is going to sound so out of left field.
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I hope this doesn't take you out of the lesson because it's so wild and so crazy you're going to think I'm nuts.
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How many of you ever saw The Grinch stole Christmas? The old one.
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The cartoon.
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30-minute cartoon, right? Comes on every Christmas.
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In the old version, Boris Karloff version, the old version, The Grinch was not ascribed any motives.
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He was just evil.
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It wasn't any motivation.
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He was The Grinch who hated Christmas and he stole Christmas.
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At the end of the story, his heart grows three sizes and he becomes a good guy.
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But at the beginning, there's no motivation.
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There's been two new movies.
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One was back in the 90s with Ron Howard made The Grinch movie.
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And then the latest one, I took my daughter to see it this week.
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It was her birthday so we went and saw the new Grinch movie, right? So there's two new Grinches.
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There's one from the 90s and one from now.
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In both of the stories, The Grinch is a victim.
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In the 90s, he was, the whole town was mean to him so he went off and he became The Grinch because everybody was mean.
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He tried to show a girl love and she rejected his love and the town bully was mean to him.
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So he was mean but he was mean because they were mean to him.
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Same thing with the new one and I don't want to spoil it for you but he was an orphan and he had all these social things that happened and it caused him to be Grinch and that's why he's The Grinch.
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And actually, I wrote to some friends about this.
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I said, look, this is the problem with our society.
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Everybody who has got a problem blames it on something else.
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Even The Grinch isn't The Grinch anymore.
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He's The Grinch of society because society made him that way.
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No responsibility is placed on The Grinch.
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It's all society that made him that way.
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We're all the way back to Adam where he said, it's the woman who you gave me.
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We're blaming everybody else.
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James doesn't allow that.
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James says, sin bears fruit because it starts in you.
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You say, I had a bad father.
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Okay.
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My dad was great but his dad left.
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His mother was on drugs.
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He had to leave when he was 12 years old.
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He lived on the street.
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He's got two knife wounds where he was stabbed.
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He lived on the street from the age of 12 to the time he went into the Air Force.
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My dad had a horrible life growing up.
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When my grandmother finally died and we went to her house to pick her up, there were hypodermic needles in her bedroom because she was a drug addict to the time she died.
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But my daddy was a good daddy to me because he didn't let what happened to him as a youth make him a bad person.
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You see the difference, right? So somebody says, well, I had a bad life so I had a bad daddy.
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I'm going to be a bad man.
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You don't get to blame your dad.
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It's on you now.
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You understand, right? And I'm going to get to the point where it's all of grace.
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So just understand, I'm not saying that salvation is by works.
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But I am saying this.
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When you come to deal with your sin, you don't get to blame anybody but you.
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When you come to your sin, you don't get to blame daddy or mommy.
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Mommy hugged me too much or not enough.
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Daddy hugged me too much or not enough.
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You don't get to do that.
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God puts it squarely at your feet.
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Go ahead.
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It is.
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And grandma was right.
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Yeah, you had a horrible...
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Yeah, things that happened to you were horrible.
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But you want to know what? You're the one that initially made the choice to go out there and hang out with people you did.
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Pick up whatever type of drug and do whatever you wanted to do.
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And when I came to terms with that, I went as far as possible.
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Absolutely.
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And at the end of the day, we do have to have a realization about our situation, right? We have to realize that we contributed to this.
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We may have had a bad life.
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Like I said, I had a good daddy.
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I know some of you didn't.
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Right? And my mama loved me.
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My dad and mom did get a divorce when I was six.
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That was rough.
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My dad and I...
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I was left with my dad.
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That was rough.
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But at the end of the day, nothing in any of that was can I blame for my sin.
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I can look at it and I can say, well, this happened and this is maybe why I do this or this happened why I do that.
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At the end of the day, it's still when I face God, I don't get to blame Eve and I don't get to blame God.
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It's all going to be on me.
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So, that's the first one.
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I said there's five and that took a little while.
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I'll go through the others relatively quickly.
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We've got to start drawing to a close.
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Number two.
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God does not tempt anyone to sin but He does test our obedience.
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That's what testing is for.
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Obedience.
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It's a test of obedience.
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God doesn't tempt us to sin but He tests our obedience.
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We've already kind of talked about that so I don't want to spend a lot on it.
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But yeah, go ahead.
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Well, I like that.
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Abraham, I think God was testing his love for him and his obedience.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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And I think, what does Jesus say? If you love me, you'll keep my commandments.
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So, obedience is a form of love when we're talking about God because He's our authority.
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When we disobey God, that's a lack of love.
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And when we obey Him, it's showing love.
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Right? And you say, well, obedience and love aren't the same thing.
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No, but obedience is how you show love.
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Right? When my kids are disobedient to me, I say, you know what? I love you.
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You're not showing me love by being disobedient.
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You know, my five-year-old doesn't quite understand that yet.
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I keep trying to help her understand.
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Well, she's six now.
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She just turned six.
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We had her birthday.
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But the whole point is when they're being disobedient, they're not showing love at that moment.
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And the same way with me and God.
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Number three, the testing of our faith is ultimately for our benefit.
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Your faith tests will benefit you because they cause you to grow.
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If you never have to stretch and reach and try for anything, you're never going to grow.
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This is why when they send guys up into space, they come back and their muscles are so weak.
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Because when you're in space, you don't have to lift your own body weight.
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When you're in space, you don't have to lift anything because there's no gravity pulling it down.
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So now they've begun to send to the space station like a Bowflex.
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Because there's no weight, right? You could lift a thousand pounds in space.
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It wouldn't matter because it's weightless.
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But a Bowflex still works because a Bowflex produces tension.
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And the tension puts pressure on the muscles and that allows the muscles to continue to grow even though you're in a zero-gravity environment, right? Well, that's what testing does for our faith.
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If your faith is never tested, then it never grows.
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If it's never stretched, then it's never strengthened.
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So testing benefits you even though we don't often like the test.
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I don't like that that's put in my...
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I don't like them cupcakes because they're a temptation.
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But it's a test to do right, right? Yeah, exactly.
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It's an opportunity to do right and we have to overcome.
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How do we overcome? By the grace of God.
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God, give me the strength.
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Augustine's prayer.
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Lord, tell me what you want me to do and then give me the ability to do it.
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Because all that's in me is evil.
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Here's something good to remember.
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Everything good I do is of God and everything evil I do is of me.
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So God, give me the grace to do good because it's got to come from you.
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Because the only thing I want to do is bad.
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The only thing I want to do is what's against you.
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So God, give me the grace to do good.
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God, I need it.
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I live every day of grace.
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What's new every morning? His mercies are new every morning.
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So I ask for that.
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God, give me the mercy today that I wouldn't fail.
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God, give me the mercy today that I wouldn't disqualify myself from preaching.
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God, give me the mercy today that I wouldn't hurt my wife or my children.
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Hey, Bubba.
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That I wouldn't hurt my wife or my children with my words or my actions.
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God, give me the...
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Because I know I could.
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I could get up and...
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You know in one day a man can ruin his whole life.
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In one day he can ruin his marriage.
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In one bad decision he can ruin a friendship.
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I've had friendships in my life.
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As a minister...
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What's that? Yeah, it begins with watch this.
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I've had relationships in the church with people that one bad meeting took years of growth and destroyed a relationship because I failed in some area and made a mistake and there was a lack of willingness to forgive.
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I've been there.
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But that test is an opportunity for growth.
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I know not to do that again.
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I made that mistake.
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I failed.
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I learned and I grew.
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Number four.
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Temptation to do evil comes not from God but from our desires.
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Temptations to do evil comes not from God but from our...
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I would say our evil desires.
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It comes from our desires.
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It's straight out of the text.
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It says it comes from us.
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Last, number five.
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The result of a life given over to fleshly desires ends in eternal death.
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That is a life that's given over always to evil desires.
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The result of a life given over to evil desire ends in eternal death.
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What we would call hell.
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Because that's a life that's not turned itself over to Christ.
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It continues to want and live in that desire.
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Go ahead.
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Yes.
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The depraved mind, I think, in Romans 1, that's where that comes from, that's when people are continually doing something, God might turn our mind over to that.
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And that's all we want.
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See, here's the thing.
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God right now has grace that's sitting upon you that's keeping you from evil.
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Right? Even unbelievers have common grace.
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Right? They have grace that's keeping them from evil.
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Because we have a desire for evil.
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God's grace keeps us from evil.
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Turning someone over to a depraved mind is when God releases that grace and lets you do all that you want to do.
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And even then, I would say there's still grace there because even Hitler loved his mama.
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You know what I mean? Even in the most depraved mind, God still got some grace in there somewhere to keep him from being utterly, utterly awful.
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I mean, Hitler could have been worse, right? He could have killed another million Jews.
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God is always working to keep us from what we could be.
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And these tests are opportunity to be what we should be.
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Sinners in the hands of an angry God.
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Absolutely.
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That's a good sermon.
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We should listen to that.
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If you've never heard it, there's good recordings of it.
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He talks about being like a spider on a web over a fire.
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And any time that web could break, and here you stand over the precipice of eternity just waiting for your death to come, and you have not yet reached out for the Lord Jesus Christ, and that fire, the licks of the fire coming up and melting that web, every strand, every second of every day.
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Your time is coming.
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Are you ready to meet your Lord? I mean, it's so powerful.
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It was the sermon that started the Great Awakening.
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But I want to end with an illustration.
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I want to end with this quick story.
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Are you guys familiar? Now, this is an old legend.
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This is not true, but it's a legend, but it's a good story.
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Are you familiar with the legend of Ulysses and the sirens? The sirens were sea nymphs.
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They would claim the sailors with song.
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The listener is seized with an irresistible desire, and so he casts himself into the sea to get to the sea nymphs.
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And of course, when he cast himself into the sea, he would drown.
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Ulysses was passing the coast, and he told his sailors, Take wax and shove the wax into my ears.
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Take rope and tie me to the post, the mast of the ship, so that if those sea nymphs cry out for me, I won't hear them.
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And even if I hear them, I won't be able to cast myself into the sea.
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Plug my ears.
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Tie my arms.
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Don't let me give in to their tempting cry.
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Right? Now, that's ancient wisdom from a time gone by.
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But the question for us, are we willing in our life as we go through all of the sea nymphs that are crying out for us to say, God, by Your mercy, close my ears.
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By Your mercy, bind my hands.
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Tie me to the post of Scripture.
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And don't let me throw myself back into the sea out of which I came.
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God, close my ears and bind my hands so that I might truly be free.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank You for Your Word.
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I thank You that Your Word tells us that we can call upon You in grace in our time of need.
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That we can call upon You.
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And as the one brother already read to us, there is no temptation that is not common to man.
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But for every temptation, there is an avenue of escape.
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And that avenue of escape is provided by You because You love us.
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You give us that way of escape, Lord.
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Lord, may it be that we seek that.
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May it be that we seek not to give in to the temptation of the flesh.
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But Lord, that we have a desire to draw closer to You in obedience to Your Word and love for You.
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Father, we know that this is not done under our own power.
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No man has ever saved himself by his own strength.
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No man could ever win his own soul.
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Lord, the souls that are saved are won by Christ.
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And the souls that are maintained in fidelity to Christ are those who are under the power of the Holy Spirit and who are given the grace to continue.
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So Lord, we pray for that grace today.
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Lord, that You might give every one of us the grace to overcome temptation.
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That You might give every one of us the grace to deal with our tests with nobility and valor.
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And Lord, when we've come out on the other side, having passed the test, and one day seeing that great crown of life, Lord, may we know that every single good thing we ever did was because of the unmerited favor of Almighty God.
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Grace, grace.
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God's grace.
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Grace that will pardon and cleanse within.
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Grace, grace.
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God's grace.
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Grace that is greater than all of our sin.
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Thank You, God.
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Amen.
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Amen.