James 1:12-18 Trials, Temptation, Truth

You are listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Mattawan, Michigan.

Good morning, Recast. Hi, I'm Rob Knold, and I'll be preaching this morning. Hope you guys are enjoying your weekend. Certainly beautiful weather, sunshine, and just a great weekend to be outside, doing yard work, planting flowers.

Who has their flowers in so far? Who has got their flowers in? Some. We don't. I should keep my hand down. Which of you? So, yeah, it's a good weekend. Don is absent this weekend. He's actually at a pastor's conference in Moody, at Moody in Chicago, and so he's asked me to preach in his absence.

Again, I'm Rob Knold. I'm a former elder here, and it's just really a privilege to preach this morning. I wanted to talk about the name of our church, Recast, for just a minute as we introduce the sermon.

Recast is an acronym. Some of you guys may know the acronym. It stands for something. It stands for replicating, community, authenticity, simplicity, and truth. I just wanted to focus on a couple of those letters this morning as we get ready to

As we just prepare our hearts for worship, and as we'll be walking into the sermon a little bit later this morning. First of all, the C stands for community, community, and that's our desire here at Recast.

We want believers to be connected in true community with each other. Community is really important, especially if you're going through hard times. Have you ever experienced trials, maybe some difficulties in life?

Community is really important, and I'm not talking about just casual friends, but true friendships, deep friendships, friendships where that relationship can sustain you through difficulty and hardship.

Hebrews 10, 24, and 25 says, let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another, and all the more as we see the day approaching. It's just really important, I think, that we have good friendships, and I just encourage you to connect with each other.

Think of ways you can connect with other believers here. Maybe invite somebody over to eat barbecue, or maybe join a ministry, working and serving together is a great way to connect with other believers.

Community groups is also something I would highlight. And the other letter I want to cover as we introduce the sermon today is the letter T, and T stands for truth in our acronym, and it's also part of the sermon today.

Here at Recast, we believe God's Word is truth, and that's why we preach God's Word. We're not caught up in human opinions, and philosophies, and all kinds of other things. We want to stick to God's Word, because God's Word is truth.

And not just that, but it has the power to change our lives. God's Word is very, very powerful. So this morning I will be preaching from God's Word, and that's where I'm going to find my source for truth, and that's what I'm excited to share this morning, is God's Word.

James as the Brother of Jesus and the Theme of the Letter

So, we're going to be preaching from the book of James, and you might be wondering, well, who wrote James? Well, maybe it's a better question is which James wrote the book, right? Because James obviously wrote the book.

I don't know how many of you guys like to watch basketball?

Anybody?

A couple?

Yeah.

NBA?

NBA basketball?

Yeah?

Maybe. Well, LeBron James is also known as King James, but he is not the author of this book. So just wanted to clarify that up front, if you're confused about that. The James that wrote this book is actually, some folks have debated it, scholars have debated this, but most scholars have settled on the fact that Jesus' brother James is the author of the book we're reading today, Jesus' brother James.

And it's kind of interesting to think about James, the brother of Christ. So he was Jesus' younger brother, and can you imagine growing up as the younger brother of Jesus? What would that have been like?

Can you imagine the comparisons that he had to deal with? Why can't you just be like your big brother Jesus?

He's perfect.

That's a tough, tough comparison. And so I'm not sure what exactly it was like to grow up as the younger brother James in that family, but Scripture tells us something interesting. It says that during Jesus' ministry, his brothers actually did not believe in Jesus.

They did not believe he was the Messiah, that he was God. And yet, Scripture also tells us that later on, Jesus, after he was risen from the dead, he appeared to a number of people, but it says specifically he appeared to James.

He appeared to this brother as the risen Savior. Can you imagine that? What would that have done to you? To see your older brother die and then come to life again and to see him? That's pretty crazy. So later on, we find out that in the New Testament, James not only is a believer, but he's actually the leader of the church in Jerusalem.

He is in charge of that church and leading it faithfully, and later is martyred for his faith. So he is a devout follower of Christ, his own brother. So at this point, I'd like to turn to James, James chapter 1, and we're going to read the passage together.

It's a short passage, James chapter 1, verses 12 to 18. And you know, if you don't have a copy of God's Word, I'd encourage you to just raise your hand. We'd love to give you a copy of God's Word, and this is a gift to you, by the way.

We want to encourage everyone to read God's Word, and I'm encouraging you to read along.

Today.

So please, open up your Bible, turn to James chapter 1, and we're going to be in verses 12 to 18. And I'll read aloud, and you can follow along. "'Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial, because having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.

When tempted, no one should say, God is tempting me, for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone. But each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed.

Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin. And sin, when it is full grown, gives birth to death. Don't be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

He chose to give us birth through the Word of truth, that we might be a kind of first fruits of all he created.'". Let's pray now, as we prepare to worship. Heavenly Father, I thank you for this morning.

I just thank you, God, for the good gifts you've given us, Lord. Beautiful weather, health to come and join this assembly and worship together, Lord. Voices, minds, just all the physical things you've given us, Lord, but also the spiritual blessings that you give us through Christ.

I just thank you for that. Lord, we need you. We need you here this morning. Lord, we ask that you would come and join us as we worship you. Hear our praise, God, and be glorified in our midst. And Father, we pray that you would just speak to our hearts through both the worship, the songs, the lyrics, through my message, God, through the words in Scripture.

Lord, would you just speak to our hearts today? We pray in Jesus' name, amen.

Amen.

You may be seated.

Thanks Dave and the band, appreciate your leadership and worship this morning. It's great to worship together as part of the community, just lifting our voices. It's great to worship alone. It's great to worship God all the time, but together, especially with other believers, it's just an encouragement.

You know, as we dig into the book of James, I just personally love this book. And I've got to be honest, I kind of preach from books and from passages that I love. And the book, for me, that whole book of James is that passage.

There's something about James, he writes in a way that just kind of punches you in the face. I don't know if you've noticed that. He's very provocative, he's very direct. He has just such strong statements.

And I think as I've read the book and studied the book in the past, I've just been convicted.

By it.

And when God starts to convict your heart, you know, you start to see things in a new.

Light.

There's change in your life. It just gets you excited. So I'm excited to share some of that with you this morning. You know, James is a book that was actually quoted in some of the songs this morning.

I was listening to the worship and it just struck me. The song that says, the flower quickly faded, vapor in the wind, you know, those are quotes from different passages in the book of James, just beautiful pictures and analogies.

A lot of people have compared the book of James with the book of Proverbs in the Old.

Testament.

It's a wisdom book. It's that type of literature. And it's also a letter, but it contains a lot of that wisdom in it. So this morning as we dig in, as you know, we're looking at verses 12 to 18, 12 to 18.

I've previously preached on verses 1 to 11, and I'll touch back on parts of that as I go through this. But we're going to be focused on verses 12 to 18 today. And the three-part sermon is the sermon title.

It's not complicated. And amazingly enough, the three parts all start with the letter T. So I was excited about how that worked out. Is there applause going on here? Thanks, Dave. So the first part of the outline this morning is trials, verse 12.

And we're going to dig into this theme of trials. It's really continuing a theme of persevering through trials. The second point in the outline is verses 13 to 15, and that's temptation. We're going to talk about temptation.

We're going to talk about where it comes from, where it doesn't come from. And really, we're going to talk about where that leads, and I think you'll also be impacted.

By that.

And then third, truth, truth. Verses 16 to 18 starts off with, don't be deceived. We're talking about what is the truth here, and the truth is God is good. God is good. And we're going to talk about some great news that we have in verses 16 to 18 that comes from truth.

So let's dig in together. We're starting in verse 12, and it starts off by just simply saying, blessed is the one who perseveres through trials. Blessed is the one who perseveres through trials. And it continues this theme of persevering.

If you look back up at chapter 1, verses 3 to 5, you may remember it says there, consider it pure joy, my brothers, when you face trials of many kinds, because you know the testing of your faith develops perseverance, and then perseverance must finish its work so you can be mature and complete, basically so you can grow up in the faith.

And here's the bottom line I just want to get to. Perseverance develops maturity. And perseverance is not easy. Perseverance is not easy. You know, I wish it was for myself, selfishly. I wish I could…I just wish it was easier.

It is the hard path in life, persevering through trial. You know, the easy way when you're going through trials is to quit, to complain, to give up. That's the easier path, isn't it? But the only way to grow up is…and by the way, trials don't guarantee growth.

You have to persevere through the trial, right? You have to persevere through for the growth to happen. And that's the ticket. That's the way to grow in the Christian faith, by going through those tough things.

Are you going through trials this morning? You know, I could ask for a show of hands. I don't think I will. I think we all go through trials. The more I go through life, the more I realize, you know, none of us escapes trials and difficulties and hardship.

And some of us are going through really tough stuff, very difficult things in life, and no one can escape it. You can't escape trials. They come. And I think the thing that really is pointed out by trials is the answer to this question.

Is your faith real? Is your faith real? You know, I think it's easy to trust God when things are going well. It's really easy. And then when bad things come, suddenly we start to question God. We start to question His character, don't we?

Do we really believe He's good?

Do we really believe He loves us? It can be more and more difficult to trust in the goodness of God. But verse 12 goes on to say, So I want to talk about that word test for just a moment. The word test here means to be proven genuine.

In the Old Testament times, they had coins, and those coins needed to be evaluated whether they're genuine, the genuine article. For example, is that a true silver coin? And so this word test, dokimos, was used to evaluate that.

Is this really the genuine article? And it's the same way. Trials come along and test our faith, and they prove us genuine. And that's really the good news. I want to encourage you this morning.

Don't waver.

Don't give up. As you're going through difficulties in life right now, I would just encourage you to persevere. This testing of your faith actually proves you are truly a Christian, truly a believer. So are you going through it right now?

Don't give up. Don't give up.

Persevere through and stand firm. There's good news in verse 12. James here says that the person who perseveres through trial will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love Him.

This is the good news. You know, and crown can mean a variety of things in Scripture, and yet in this passage it's talking about the crown of life given to those who persevere through trial. I believe it's similar to the wreath that a runner of a race, whoever wins that race would get as they complete their race.

It's the crown of life, the victor's crown. And this is eternal life. This is the good news that we all share today. And that good news of eternal life really starts the moment you believe. There is joy in faith in Christ even in the midst of trial.

And if you think about it, we think of eternal life as, you know, after I die someday I'm going to be in heaven and it's far away. But eternal life really starts right now, right now in the middle of trials, in the middle of difficulties.

We get the abundant blessings that God has for us, an incredible inheritance. So, others may say, and may be looking at your life, and they may say as you're going through trials and difficulties, why do they sacrifice and endure?

Why do they suffer so much? Why not just give up, give in a little bit? You know, why not indulge a little? That's a temptation, perhaps. But we've fixed our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.

We stay focused on Him. We don't focus on the stuff around us. And we know that He has a reward for us. That's the crown of life. That's what we're staying focused on. His reward is worth so much more than all the junk around us.

Do you remember Jesus' Sermon on the Mount? Jesus mentioned something very, very similar to what James is saying here. Jesus said, Do not lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven where moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal.

Rather, store up for yourselves, I meant to say on earth, where moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal. Rather, store up for yourselves treasures in heaven. And Jesus concludes that with, Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

And that's exactly what James is saying here as well. Who gets the crown of life? Go back to that verse, verse 12, and read the end of it.

It says,.

Those who love Him. Those who love Him. So I think this is something that I kind of discovered as I was studying this verse and I grabbed a hold of. The ones who persevere through trial at the beginning of that verse, it goes on to say, Inherit this crown of life, and it finishes with, Those who love Him.

So the people who love Christ, who treasure Him, as Jesus talked about, who put their treasure in heaven, who desire God and who want God more than anything, those are the ones who are persevering through trial.

Do you see that connection there? So I want to really challenge us on where our heart's at. What do you desire? What do you want more than anything? Is it set on Christ? Is He the one you really love?

Or are you trading the God of the universe for cheap, junky substitutes in this world? Pleasure, money, fame, comfort, whatever it is that you think maybe will make you happy right now, God is the only one.

He is the real deal. So don't trade Him for junky substitutes. God created everything, and He knows what you need. So the question is, are you going to pursue and cultivate your desire for God? And it's easy to say that, Yeah, I want to desire God.

I want to love God. I want to know God. But how do you do that? There's practical steps we have to do. We have to actively do things. Quiet time is a great example. Carving out time to just spend with God.

Talking to Him in prayer. Reading His Word. Praising Him. Praising Him in the morning. Praising Him at night. Praising Him in between. Just worshiping God. That's a great way to cultivate your love for God.

Make Him your treasure. Love God first and foremost. And by loving God, and by directing your desire and affection toward God, it's going to help you in persevering through those trials that we're talking about in verse 12.

Temptation, Evil Desire, and the Progression to Sin

So I want to move on now to verse 13. Verse 13. James uses the same word for trial here, but it's now interpreted as temptation. And when I first started studying this, I was kind of interested in that fact.

We saw the word trial used back in verses 3 to 5, and 12, and now the same word is translated as temptation. So the question I have for you is, does God allow trials into our life? And the answer is yes.

Yes, He does.

Clearly, He allows trials to help us mature and grow up in the faith. We read about that, and we know that. But what about when things go wrong? What about when things go wrong? What if you give in to temptation?

Then is God at fault? Well, God allowed this into my life, and I messed up, so therefore it's God's fault. I'll blame Him. Is that right? Clearly, no. James is very emphatic. No, you should not say God is tempting you.

So there's a very clear clarification here. It says we learn something here about what it says about God. And I think, by the way, just a side note, I think it's very important that we pay attention. When we see something about God in Scripture, Scripture is our source and our reference for learning about God, so let's pay attention to that.

It's talking about God's character and who He is. God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He tempt anyone. God is perfect.

He's holy. He's just.

There's nothing evil in God. And isn't it just like us to blame someone else for our problems, the whole blaming thing and trying to blame God? So it reminds me of Adam and Eve in the garden. We saw God confronts them about sin and eating the fruit, and what does Adam say?

This woman you gave me. So he's like blaming her and blaming God all at the same time. And then what does Eve say? The serpent. So there's just this blame shifting, and I think that's very common in our humanity, in our fallen nature to blame.

But we should not blame God for temptation. Rather, how does temptation work? So we get a little education in how this whole temptation thing goes down. Where does it come from? It says each of us is dragged away and enticed by our own evil desires.

Have you ever experienced that?

Have you? I know I have. I don't need any help sinning. I'm quite capable all on my own to tempt myself. I have desires in my own heart that I know are wrong, and they just well up sometimes. And I think of the example of a little kid.

You know, a baby, they look so innocent, and then they sort of grow up, and suddenly there's fits, and there's all kinds of selfishness coming out, and you're like, where did this come from?

What?

This beautiful little child. I never taught him to throw pots and pans across the room here. What's going on? And the reality is there's a selfishness. There's a sinfulness that wells up inside of us, and it's the sinful nature we've inherited.

And so I think that's pretty clear. We're all born with it. Another passage that I thought was really interesting to think about as it relates to where does sin come from is Jesus when he's answering the question to the Pharisees of eating unclean things.

And Jesus clarifies and says, no, no, no, you're not made unclean by stuff you eat that goes into your mouth. No, you're made unclean by the stuff that comes out of your own heart. What's coming out of you is what makes you unclean.

We're already unclean. As the Bible clearly says, we've all sinned. We all fall short of the glory of God. So, believers, Christians, when you've put your faith and trust in Christ, how do we then combat sin in our life?

I want to just encourage us to think about the progression of sin that we see in this passage and think about the early stage, the desire stage. And I believe, I just want to share with you that I believe that that's the point in our lives where we should combat sin.

I think that's the critical time. Before sin happens, and especially before a pattern of sin is established, but back at the desire stage, I think we need to address that in our own hearts. So, I'd encourage you this morning to evaluate your own heart.

What do you truly desire?

What do you desire?

Is your heart set on God? Is your heart set on what He wants for your life, His kingdom, His purposes, His agenda, what He's doing in the world, and the promptings the Holy Spirit gives you? Are your desires along those lines?

And I know, I just want to admit that right now, this is a constant battle, and I know that in my own heart there is a constant battle, right? I do, I want to please God, I want to follow God, but I get my eyes off of God so quickly, so easily.

So, it's a moment-by-moment battle that we need to face. So, I just want to encourage you this morning to continue to turn back to God, continue to turn back to God and set your eyes on Him as many times as it takes.

You know, make it your life goal to know God, to pursue God, to love God. It is a lifelong process of sanctification. I want to move on now and talk about what happens then after desire conceives, it gives birth to sin.

Sin actually is, there's a line between temptation and sin, and it's when we give into our desires and our thoughts, whatever thoughts or actions or deeds, whatever we do, prompted by those desires, that then is sin.

It's when we indulge our appetite for sinful things, whatever's contrary to God's will. It's interesting, later on in this passage, we talk about God being the giver of every good gift, and we're going to dig into that, but it's interesting.

God gives so many good things in life, and yet we twist those things and use them and turn them into evil purposes. I just, almost, when you step back and think about it, it's almost comical if it wasn't so sad.

We take, you know, we take good things. Let's take food, for example. Food is good, God gave us food, and we need it to sustain ourselves, but somehow we find ways to just overindulge and do things in excess and abuse it and just become gluttons.

How about sex? God gave sex, it's a beautiful gift, and yet why do we use it in a way contrary to God's will and engage in sex outside of marriage? How about medicine? There's all kinds of herbs and remedies and things that very smart scientists have discovered over the ages, and these can be good things, but somehow we take those and misuse them and abuse drugs and use them to get high and to do all kinds of wrong things.

It's just interesting to me how sin, it just is all around us, and it's always taking what God had created and twisting it. Sin literally means missing the mark. It's falling short of God's perfect holy standard, and sin takes a wide variety of forms.

You can see the seven things on the slide there. There's the 10 commandments in the Old Testament that clearly outlines right and wrong, and then there's New Testament is full of examples of sin. I don't think that you need to be taught too much about this, but I will read one list from Galatians 5.

In Galatians 5, it talks about living by the Spirit and living by the flesh, and there's contrast that Paul gives us in Galatians, and I think a lot of us are familiar with the fruits of the Spirit. Everybody heard of the fruits of the Spirit?

That's great. That's what we should be doing. The Spirit should be causing those things to flow out of us, but the opposite list, the acts of the sinful nature, what happens in our flesh is a terrible list, and I don't hear this one quoted too often in Sunday schools, but I'm going to list this right now for us.

There's very clearly wrong things. It says sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissension, factions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and the like.

I don't think that there's very much debate on those things. We should know those are wrong, and yet I will also admit that sometimes there's gray areas in life, and maybe you're, as a believer, you're literally, there are areas in life where it's hard to decide, and you need to figure out, should I do this or that, and there are true gray areas.

I would just encourage you to ask for wisdom. James encourages us to ask for wisdom, and I would say the same to you, to you this morning. Please ask God for wisdom in those gray areas, but I think most of the time we know what's right and wrong.

The hard part, the hard part is what to do when we feel that conviction of sin. We've sinned and committed sin, and we're caught in it, and the Spirit convicts us. Now what are you gonna do? Are you gonna respond and pray and repent and turn from it, or are you gonna continue in that sin?

I pray that you turn from sin, because it is critical that we root out sin as early as possible, and don't establish these pathways, these patterns of sin in our lives, these ruts that get established.

It's terrible to sin, and God doesn't make light of sin, and I'm not gonna make light of sin this morning, but we've all sinned, okay? We have all sinned, and we all fall short, and the question is, when you have sinned, what are you then going to do, Christian?

What are you going to do?

Think of the example of Jesus. Do you remember when the woman was caught in adultery, and they brought her to Jesus, and they tried to catch Jesus, right? What is he gonna do? Is he gonna have her stoned, or is he gonna set her free?

We got him now, and what does Jesus do?

He says,.

Whoever has not sinned, cast the first stone, and so eventually everyone disperses, and then he says to the woman,.

Where are your accusers?

And they've all gone, and he tells her, go and sin no more. Do you remember that phrase? Go and sin no more. He's not saying, it's okay, just keep sinning. He says, go and sin no more. God's desire for us is not to continue in sin, so I'm gonna continue on now in verse 15, and talk about really the sad part about sin, the sad part about sin.

Verse 15 shows that downward path. Our sinful desires lead to sin, and sin may seem okay for a while.

You may get away with it.

You may think, you know what? No one needs to know about this. You hide it in your life. You have a secret sin that's going on, but I gotta tell you this morning, if that's the case for you, and it may be just between you and God, and no one else here knows, but that sin is gonna mess you up.

It will. Sin is dangerous. Sin is powerful. Scripture tells us right here that it eventually is going to kill us. Sin is not something to be trifled with. Sin grows up. Sin grows up in this passage, and eventually kills us, and that's what I'm talking about, this pattern of sin in your life.

Do not allow sin to continue to grow up in your life. Don't play with sin. Don't give in to the desires you know are wrong, the price is so severe. It's a lot worse than you think. I thought of the Proverbs 5 to 7.

There's a passage there that talks about the danger of sexual sin, to be quite honest. That's the really focus of that three chapters, and I'll highlight especially chapter 7 in Proverbs where it describes a young man.

It describes a young man. He's looking out the window. He's looking out the window at the wrong time in the wrong part of town, and he sees a woman, and he's enticed. And then just all of a sudden, he just goes and commits sin, little knowing that it's going to cost him his life.

Sin is so messed up. It will mess you up, and I just want to emphasize that this morning. Don't play around with sin. I'm going to say it this way. Sin is stupid. Sin is stupid. A pastor once told me that.

Sorry, I wrote it down. It's a great quote, I think. Sin is stupid. It really is. When you stop and think about it, when you really think about the consequences,.

Where is this leading?

Where is it going? It may seem fun for a while. It may seem exciting for a while, but sin is literally stupid, and I apologize if I'm offending some of you with my strong language there. Think about it for a second.

Adultery. When someone engages in adultery and they break their marriage vows and they go down that path and they destroy the beautiful thing that God had created in their life with their marriage and their kids, think about the long-term effects of that adultery on divorce and broken relationships and injured children and generational impacts of that.

I know that's a painful thing for many. The same thing about pornography. Some people think, well, that's a harmless thing to do. What's wrong with that? Well, I would just have to tell you this morning that pursuing pleasure through images and fantasies and pretending it won't hurt anyone is just foolishness.

There's a whole industry that's using and abusing women for people's pleasure, and then what are you doing to your mind? You're corrupting your mind. You're filling it with images. You're changing and distorting your own desires.

Changing what God had intended, sex or something good, and just distorting it and changing it into something to satisfy your own fleshly desires. How about another example? Stealing.

Lying.

It's the same thing. You're forfeiting your honor and your integrity and you're taking something that's not yours and you think you're going to get away with it. Life is good. Life's okay. No one has to know.

I'll sneak around. But do you know the cost? You know, it's not just the cost of getting caught. It's the cost of that lifelong pattern. What are you establishing in your life? A life of deception. Think about the long-term consequences of those bad patterns.

And think about this, your own conscience and your conscience before God. I guarantee you, down the road, you will be haunted by the dumb sin that you engaged in. So turn your back on it and don't be fooled.

You know, and that's what verse 16 says. Read verse 16, the first part of it. Don't be deceived. Don't be deceived. The great deceiver, Satan, is all about deception. That's what spiritual warfare is all about.

It's about deceiving this world and just leading us astray. That's Satan's basic objective. I think he's doing a pretty good job right now. I have to be honest with you. If you just look at our culture right now, movies, TV shows, it seems like we glorify sin.

We glorify sin. And we should not do that. We need to not follow the temptation and the alluring path of sin. And as a movie quotes, don't follow the lights. And that's actually a movie I kind of like.

But do not follow the lights. Don't follow that path of worldly temptation.

Into sin.

Every Good Gift Comes from the Father of Lights

So verse 17, let me get back to the text here. Every good and perfect gift, every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of heavenly lights. He wants us to know, he's really saying don't be deceived.

Everything good is coming from God. Because I think we can fall into temptation or we can be deceived into thinking good things come from other sources. So first of all, I want to say Satan did not create anything good.

He twists what God created into evil things. But I think there's all kinds of deceptions in our society. And I want to touch on a topic this morning that may be controversial. But I still want to go there.

For example, evolution. Evolution, this humanistic thinking that God wasn't involved at all in creation and everything's just evolved over the years, billions of years. It denies that God created everything.