Trials and Suffering

OK, last week we started our study on looking at temptation. And we've separated out temptation from testing. And we said last week that when we use the word temptation, we're going to, at least in this class, we're going to be using it as a solicitation to sin. We're going to use it in the negative sense. It's used in Scripture in the positive sense in several instances, but we're going to separate temptation from testing, because there are two different words that are used, and hopefully we'll see that this morning. But, as we looked at it last week, we were in the epistle of James, so if you'll turn there to James chapter 1. James chapter 1, and last week we looked at verse 13.

It says, Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God. For God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempts He any man. Now, as we went through this passage of Scripture last week, where it says that God cannot be tempted, we went through several examples in Scripture where God was tempted.

God the Father was tempted. He was tempted by the Jews in the wilderness for 40 years. The Lord Jesus Christ was tempted. How? in the wilderness by Satan for 40 days? Isn't that interesting? God was tempted for 40 years in the wilderness, and Jesus Christ was tempted for 40 days in the wilderness. And the Holy Spirit, it talks about the Holy Spirit being tempted by Ananias and Sapphira. Safari because they lied to the Holy Spirit.

But yet, in verse 13, it says that God cannot be tempted with evil. And when we looked at that, we saw that that was an essence verb, and it essentially said that God's essence is untemptable. There is nothing There is nothing in God that can respond to an external solicitation to sin. Can we respond to an external solicitation to sin and sin? Why? Because of our nature and we don't have the, well I shouldn't say that, because we do have the very nature of our Lord Jesus Christ. But his very nature, he could not react to it, because there was nothing in his nature that could respond to temptation. That's what verse 13 is saying. But we can respond. And then verse 14 goes on to say how we do respond to solicitations to sin. So verse 14.

But every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed. Let me just take the first part of that. is tempted. And the word tempted there is the word that we've been looking at. Pairadzo, say it. Pairadzo, which is this solicitation to sin. And we're going to see another word hopefully this morning, which is dachimadzo. which is which is a test as opposed to a solicitation to sin. So when we see pirates, usually it's just a solicitation to sin with a view towards failure.

OK. And we're documents. So is. Each one is tempted when he is carried or drawn away and enticed by his own lust. See that little preposition there, by? It tells you the means, the means of temptation, the means by which we're tempted. And it says, by our own lust. And the word lust Epithumia simply means desire, our own desire. And often times it's an inordinate desire, but it's just a desire, so it can be translated desire.

So that when you come to the commandment, that Paul in Romans 7 talked about. He says the commandment says, Thou shalt not lust. The word is desire. Thou shalt not desire is one of the commandments. So, here's the question. What is the source of our temptations? I just gave you the answer, right? This is a preposition that shows you the means by which one is tempted. And so it's by our own lust or by our own desire.

Now, as you look at the word desire in scripture, It's used in a good sense, it's used in a bad sense. Just like paradzo, the temptation, is used, we saw, in a good sense, and used also in a bad sense. The word epiphamia a desire or longing, when Paul had a desire, his desire was to be with Christ. And it's used in a good sense. And then it's used in a bad sense. In fact, most instances in the New Testament is used in a bad sense, in terms of an evil sense.

So if you look at Colossians 3.5, it talks about evil desire, evil epiphemia.

Now, what's the source? What's the source of the desire? So the source of the temptation is the desire. Now the question is, what's the source of the desire? And the source of the desire, turn to Galatians chapter 5, and keep your finger in James chapter 1, Galatians chapter 5.

And here this word epiphemia, lust or desire, is used in two ways. Galatians 5 verse 17. It says, For the flesh lusts or desires against the Spirit. Epiphemia. And the spirit lusts or desires against the flesh, epiphamia. So you have the two ways that epiphamia is used. But it's the flesh, notice the flesh which is synonymous in this case, I think, to the sin nature, The flesh is not always synonymous to the sin nature, and I won't go through that this morning, but the heart of the flesh here, in the negative sense, is the sin nature. So the source of the desire is out from our sin nature. So you can say this, that the ultimate source of temptations is our sin nature. Question. How many natures do we have? Two. Sin nature and what's our other nature? Okay, our new nature, Christ's very nature, okay? Because as we've looked at John 17, that when Christ prayed, Father, the glory that you have given me, I have given them, and we are a new creation in Christ. He has given us our very nature.

Can our new nature be tempted? Solicited to sin? No. Why? Because it is in Christ. Okay, and we just saw last week in verse 13 that God's nature, Christ's nature, the very nature is untemptable. It can't be tempted. It cannot react. to solicitations to sin, right? Because its nature is such that it can't do that. It's a righteous nature. It can't act unrighteously. It can encounter temptation, but it can't yield to it. It can encounter it, but it can't yield to it or respond to it. Yes. Okay?

So, as we look at this, there are many external influences in your life and in my life which are solicitations to sin. There's lots of them. But it's not the external stimulation, it's not the external thing itself that tempts us It's our reaction to it. So there may be a lot of temptations out there to sin, solicitations to sin, but it's only our reaction to it that is temptation out from us. So, what's an example?

I can be driving down East COFAX, and there's a lot of solicitations to send standing on the corners. Now, my reaction, it's my reaction to that, that, you know, how I react to that. Now, and I've driven down East COFAX with all these solicitations to send, but that does not phase me. In fact, as I go down, I'm praying for these gals. And it's very much like I was a compulsive gambler. And so I spent a lot of my life in Las Vegas. And the crap tables were my life. And I can remember When I became a believer, several years after I became a believer, I had to go through Las Vegas. I was taking my daughter to college.

And you always kind of wonder if that pull is still there. The sow returns to the mire? Well, I went back to the mire and I stood down at the crap table and I said, I'm going to get some chips. I got $20 worth of chips. I stood there and bet on the cum and five bucks. And as I stood there doing that, I looked around the table. And I saw the faces of the people on the table. And I said, that was me.

And I had no desire, no desire whatsoever to continue any further. Was I tempting the Lord? You know, you kind of want to know, but there was absolutely no temptation. So that's not a temptation to me. But it may be a temptation, a solicitation to sin for someone else.

Okay? Talking about Kovacs, just for a quick second. Have you been on Kovacs? No. Christmas and I came over to the car and this one still had the crevice, so it was high off the ground. I rolled down the window and I said, do you need some help? And she goes to a certain spiel. I won't repeat it here, but I wished her a pleasant Lord's birthday and that dandami I had in the console So I gave her one and I said, I wish to give you this and maybe it'll help you through your holiday. And most of the time they're thrown away. And as I walked away I looked in the rearview mirror through the pages of the book. Almost like you've never seen one before. And that I disappeared when she disappeared. You never know, do you?

You mentioned whole facts. Question? Yes. Define sin. Okay. Question is define sin. Good question. We don't have an idea of what it is, but define it. Okay. So how do we define sin? You know, like, for all, in Romans 23, I think is a wonderful definition, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Margaret? I would say sin is anything that's not faith. Okay. Anything. Okay. In Romans 14, anything that is not of faith is sin. Okay. Disobeying God. Okay. Disobeying God.

Think of Romans 3.23, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. And when I think of a bullseye, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. There's a target out there, and there's a bullseye. And the target is the glory of God. And the center of that target is God's absolute righteousness.

And it says, for all have sinned, and the word sin, harmatia, means to miss the mark. To miss the mark. So we, we don't, we cannot hit the mark. Sin is missing the mark of the glory of God. And then it goes on to say, and we've come short. And the word come short actually means to turn around. So coming short, or sinning, that whole process is missing the mark of God's righteousness and turning around from it. So they're all good definitions. All right.

So it's not the external thing. There may be an external solicitation to send, but it doesn't become internal until we react to it. Right. So, external things do not become personal temptations unless the sin nature desires to pursue them. It's only then when it becomes a temptation.

So, now let's look on. Let's go on in James chapter 1. So every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed. So, we want to take a look at the process of being tempted here. Because James chapter 1 verse 14 and 15 gives us the process of temptation. Now, I find it very interesting that when it says, But each one is tempted when he is carried away, drawn away, and enticed by his own lust.

And this, being tempted, is a passive voice, which means that you and I are acted upon. Now, wouldn't you think that it would say that we produced the action? But we're acted upon. So the way that this is being looked at is that who is being acted upon?

Okay, the old man. And it's the old man that is being tempted. And it's looking at the point of view is that we, being acted upon, we, in Christ, can never be tempted, right? In terms of our new nature, can never be tempted. But we are being acted upon. It's a passive voice we're being acted upon.

And so I find that to be interesting. And then as you go through this whole process, it's when he is carried away or drawn away and enticed. And the word drawn there means, literally, almost to drag. And it's used in a good sense in scripture, and it's used in a bad sense in scripture. Just like almost every word in scripture can be used in a good sense and a bad sense. And when we think of the word love, agape, what do we think of? Good sense or bad sense? Good sense. And what do we think of agape? God's love, but yet it's used in a negative sense in scripture, right? And it says that in John chapter 3 when it says, men loved darkness rather than light. Men agape darkness rather than light. So it's used in a negative sense.

So every, almost every word I can think of Not many words, let me put it this way, many words in scripture are used in both senses. And this word drawn is also used in a positive sense when God draws a person to Christ. That drawing process, he draws a person to Christ. And it's used in a negative sense here, that we're drawn by our lust, by our desire. And there's this drawing process.

And then it says, and there's two participles here, in terms of the process that's going on. One is being drawn, and the other is being enticed. And being enticed, the liberal definition is to be lured by bait. That there's a bait out there, and you're being lured by the bait and it's dragging you. So that's part of the process of temptation. So as we go down, the first thing that happens is there's the desire.

There's the external influence, and then there's the desire by the sin nature. Then what happens is we're drawn away, or we're induced. And the drawing away is the drawing away of a believer from his or her abiding in Christ. It's instead drawing away from Christ.

Then the enticement to be lured by bait, and it's a fishing term, and it's really a fishing term, and that's what it's used. So when we go back to Minnesota and we go to these lakes and we fish for northern, I know that if I use a red-eye wiggler, that I'm going to get a strike. The only lure I ever use for northern are red-eye wigglers. Because I can fish a lake and I can go around the lake with a red-eye wiggler and BANG! I'll get a hit. I go around the lake again, same spot, BANG! I'll get a hit or maybe I'll catch one.

And so then I know, as I troll the entire lake, that there's this spot in this lake where the northern are resting. And there's a whole slug of them resting in this part of the lake. And when I come by with that red-eyed wiggler, No other lore has done it for me, but when they see this red-eyed wiggler and this silver shiny thing with this big red eye, there's that enticement to these Northerners. They're at this place in rest. Whammo! They take the bait. So that's exactly what happens with us in this drawing away process. Now I want you to notice that this is a process. It's a process over time. We'll talk about that in a minute.

Then what happens is, look at verse 15. Then when lust has conceived, it brings forth sin, and sin, when it is finished, brings forth death. that desire, lust, when lust has conceived. Now, here comes the bait in your life and my life. Here comes the bait. And when we take the bait, conception has occurred. It's conceived. It says, as it says, that lust has now conceived. The desire has now conceived. We've become pregnant. In fact, the word soulambano in the Greek means to become pregnant.

We've become pregnant. Can we go back? Pregnancy, as you gals know, is reversible, irreversible, right? Can't turn back. We become pregnant. And the process then goes on, is that pregnancy is occurred, and then birth. And after the conception, there's the birth, and the birth, the baby is sin. Sin, as Doug asked, is missing the mark. Missing the mark of God's glory. And then it says that that when sin is accomplished, or finished, it brings forth death.

Question. What does death mean? Don't look at your notes. So when you see death, and separation from what? When you separate something, you separate something from something. So what's separated? And how are we separated from God? Do we lose our salvation? Is that the separation? The separation is in fellowship, not salvation, which is key. So there's death, as indicated, not loss of salvation.

So how do we picture this whole thing? Now, again, this is a process. We start out abiding in Christ, and then comes along maybe some external solicitation to sin. And the sin nature responds to it, and there's a desire. And so, is that sin? Then it says, we'll run away.

There's this dragging away from where we're resting. And our resting place is in Christ. And we're abiding in Him. And there's this dragging away. And then comes the bait. Then we're lured by bait. Here's my northern. So, there's this luring away by the bait. Is that sin? Then we take the bait. Mentally. We take that bait. And then there's Sulambana. We become pregnant. Lust conceives.

And then the whole process is downward. Then there's the birth. The birth is sin. And then death. And so our start is we're abiding in Christ, our finish, we're abiding in the flesh. So we go from abiding in Christ to abiding in the flesh, and it's, as you said, loss of fellowship.

Okay. If I were to draw a line here, a horizontal line, where would I draw it to say what is temptation and what is sin? Where would I draw that line here, here, here? Where would I drive? Take the bait. All right. Let's see if you're right. No. So if I were to draw that line. is that the line is here, is this part here where we're taking the bait. And so the point is this, and the key point is this.

Often believers think when they have some bad thoughts or desires or whatever, they immediately think that it's sin. that they've sinned. And they're confessing this, they're confessing a temptation, but not necessarily confessing a sin. And there's a difference between temptation and sin. There's only sin when we've taken that bait.

And I'll give you an example. But it's critical that we understand this, because I think I told you once before, I talked to a gal who told me that she was always confessing her sins. I said, really? And she says, you know, I kept a log yesterday, and I counted, I think it was 178 times I confessed my sin. Wow. 178 times. I think it was more, but I don't want to exaggerate. I think it was several hundred. And so every thought that came into her mind, in terms of the temptation, she thought was sin. But a thought or desire is not sin until we take the bait. Okay. Yes.

So I keep thinking of you at the tables in Las Vegas. You'll always pin me to Las Vegas now. No, but, and plus, you know, President Carter lusting in your heart, but I keep thinking if you, and you're addressing that now, but if you walked away and, you know, exerted self-will to walk away from that sin, but still sort of lusted in your heart about gambling, isn't that still a sin?

The thing is, there was absolutely no desire. I realize that, but I'm just saying if that was the case. Oh, if it was the case when I went and I said, well, now let's take out the bankroll. It made 500. But what if you still walked away? Exerted self-will. Oh, okay. I see what you're saying. I see what you're saying. That the desire was to be at that table, but then self says, you know, you're a Christian and you shouldn't be here.

That kind of thing. And we do that kind of thing. And we, if you will, we play act as Christians. And that would be kind of like play acting. In a sense, because who's doing the walking away in that instance? Self is. Yeah. The faith that self took was pride, not gambling. It was pride.

But any time it doesn't help, you're in sin. You're in the flesh, you're in sin, period. And the new nature doesn't want to do that anyway. It wasn't the will of the old nature that beat out the sin. It was the new nature that wants nothing to do with it. Either the bait of gambling or the bait of pride or drinking or whatever. It's just not the new nature. Correct. Correct. Right, but I was thinking about the girl with the 178 sins. I mean, was she just still dying to do those sins?

I've got to bring up more examples like this because... Well, I can think of a lot of my own. But that, I think, is also our old nature that wants to be in the center of everything. So we want to keep track of what we do for the good and for the bad. Because that keeps us in the center of the picture.

And it's us trying to live the Christian life, isn't it? It's making the Christian life a legalistic system, that I've got to account for what I'm thinking, and whether it's sin or not. As opposed to just resting in Him. And the Holy Spirit is going to do His job in our life. And the Holy Spirit is going to convict us whether something is sin.

And that's the key. Josiah? For that case, that girl, that's more of ignorance. Exactly. She is self-focused. She's still ignorant. I used to do that. I even went through that phase of just trying to confess everything. Or, also I went through this phase where I thought every temptation was satanic. So I'm going around all day long repeating Satan, repeating Satan.

Exactly right. And especially those who believe we only have one nature. that the source then of temptation is never from within, it's always from without. So it's always Satan, and it's rebuking Satan, etc., etc. OK. So just a summary picture here. I when I did this, transferred this last night. I guess I wasn't seeing very well. Is this blurry to you? Oh really?

And I don't know what happened because what this picture showed is a line going here to here called desires. and a line from here to here, desires, to depict what we talked about in Galatians 5.17, that the lust were the desires of the flesh, that they lust against the desires of the spirit.

So, anyhow, picture that in your mind, and the source of temptation is, as we've seen, never, never, ever from God. He's incapable of tempting us, soliciting us to sin. And it's always from the sin nature, the source is the sin nature, and the desires come out from the sin nature. The whole temptation of, the invention of temptation, would be then only Lucifer's idea? The question is this, is the whole idea of temptation Lucifer's idea? So let me throw that out. What do you think? Is it just Lucifer?

If no sin can come from outside, then it must be coming from the flesh, the sin nature. Okay, think about this in terms of answering the question. God created man in his image and his likeness in Genesis 1, 26 and 27. Man sinned. It's a big God. And then when you get over to Genesis chapter 5 and verse 3, it says, now man is created or is in the image and likeness of who? Adam. He's in the image and likeness of Adam. And Adam has a sin nature.

And we know that by Romans 5.12, for by one man, sin entered into the world. Definite article, the sin entered into the world in death by sin. So, we know Adam had a sin nature. And so therefore, the sin nature has all these desires. independent of Satan. We don't need Satan to tempt us, right? In fact, I would venture this, that the temptation that comes into your life, in my life, is probably really from Satan. But it's from the same nature. Does that help?

At least for me, some of the confusion comes in that we know that our enemies are the world, the flesh, and the devil. And so I think what I'm trying to understand is, if the devil's not attacking us, like Josiah's example, and they've done that, is it, you know, our flesh is, or our soul is how we respond to this world around us, into the, Just the things around us. So is it... It's how our flesh interacts with the world and the devil? Is that what we're saying? I mean, I'm not quite clear how that all works together. How the world and the devil can be our enemy when it's our sin nature or our flesh that... Okay. Alright. So let's take the world. Let's take an example. And let's take driving down COFAX. There's the world. Let's go to Las Vegas. There's the world.

And they are solicitations to sin. They're the enticement. Yes, enticement. Now the thing is, the question is, how does the sin nature react to that? Does it look at the gal driving down Koufax and say, boy, I wonder if I have enough money? Or I sure would like to be with that gal. But it's the reaction of the sin nature that is the temptation internally. the desire internally. So, it doesn't become a desire until the sin nature reacts to that external stimulation, if you will.

Okay? The world is actually a little easier for me to grasp, in that sense, than the devil. Is Satan the source of it? And Michael said the same thing. You think you're so important that Satan really cares about you. So how is it that the devil then is... And think about this. Tell me, because we often think about the devil like we think about God. Is the devil omnipresent?

He can only be in one place at one time. So if he's at Nancy's house, tempting her, he's not out in Parker tempting me. And he used to be at Josiah's house quite a bit. And therefore he wasn't even in Colorado at that time. I see what you're saying, that the temptations of the devil, because he's a creative being who can only be in one place at one time. And that devil, when we say the devil, that means specifically Satan, not his minions who are out now? Even in that there's a limited number? you know, the fallen angels have influence to tempt us or not. I don't know scripture talking about that. And I know we don't want our focus to be on that. We want our focus to be on the Lord Jesus Christ. These are just questions that come up repeatedly. I've never been able to Do you have it now? Yes.

Satan used the flesh when the flesh was involved. We may not even think of the devil as being behind it because he's deceiving us. And so whatever he can use, flesh or world or whatever, he does that. Yes. And Satan can certainly use the world, right? And you might look at it this way. Satan has influenced a lot, right, in the world. And so, therefore, the influence is there from the world, but behind it was Satan.

You can look at it that way. Good. Okay, so now. Here comes the temptation, right? And we haven't taken the bait. Oh. I want to ask you a question. And the question is this. When temptation comes into your life, Do you see this process going on? That there's these desires, and then there's this tugging, and then there's this luring away? Do you see this process going on? I can remember I presented this once, and one of the gals in the class said, you know, that isn't my life.

The way it happens with me is that there's a ramp. And not only is it a ramp, but it's greased. And I go from here, right to here. I never even detect any of this. And that may be true. And that may be true. And let me say this, the more that we know Christ, the more that we are sensitive to Him and to who He is, the more we're going to see these steps. But if we don't know who He is, then it's going to be a greased ramp function. But the more that we come to know what he's like and who he is, and the more that we mature and grow, the more that we're going to see these steps and say, then, hey, that's a temptation. Now, the question is, when we see this, when we see that it's a temptation, What should be our response?

Negative or positive? Turn away from it. Okay. Who's doing the turning? And self says, I sure like to be there, but I know better, right? I know better, right? I, the old man, know better. I'm just going to turn away from that. Okay. So let's look at it from God's perspective. And turn to James chapter 1. Okay, I want you to think about this for next week in terms of what should be our response as we detect temptation in our life, the solicitation to sin. And let me say this. Well, let me ask a question.

In your life, Where does solicitation, what's the source of solicitations to sin? What's the greatest source in your life to solicitations to sin? Is it in the workplace with your fellow workers? Is it as you go about wherever you go? Where? Where do you find that there's this pulling and this luring to sin? It's everywhere. It's everywhere? What's the greatest source in your life?

In my home. Don't you find it to be at home? I mean, you're at home almost, not quite 24-7, but that's where you're spending most time, right? And you're spending time with your spouse. And you have differences of opinion. No. And you find that there are issues that you kind of go like this on. And we're in a workplace, you know, there may be issues, but you try to deal with them in a gracious manner. But do you find that at home, you kind of let your hair down? And you care about truth? So that's what we're going to be talking about next week. OK, let's close. Our Father, again, we are thankful. We are thankful for your word that reveals to us the person of Christ.

And we just thank you that he's our very life. And our prayer, Father, is that as we behold Him in Your Word, that we be transformed into His very image. And we know, Father, that You have told us as we come to know Him. The more we come to know Him, the more we come to know sin. And, Father, we thank You for that revelation. Because the more we come to know what the sin nature is all about, the more we come to appreciate the death of our Lord Jesus Christ and for the sin nature. So, Father, we thank you again and pray that as we go through this study, our hearts would be edified, built up, and that they may honor and glorify you. In Christ's name, we pray this.