Trials and Suffering
Hal Molloy · Mar 21, 2004
Trials & Suffering (2004), No. 12
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/482623455826

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Okay, just a kind of a review in terms of where we've been and where we're going. We started out looking at God's eternal purpose, right? God's eternal purpose in each and every one of our lives. And we broke down God's eternal purpose into four aspects.

The fact that He's declaring His glory And let me ask a question. Does He declare His glory? Does He announce His glory through us in our trials? Just as a test. Just declare to to now to show His glory through us and remember that in our trials that He's declaring His glory to heavenly beings. It's incredible in terms of His declaring His glory. He's revealing His glory to us through His word and He reveals His glory to us in His word. believing on what he reveals are growing in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. And therefore, he's sharing his glory with us. We've seen he's already shared his glory positionally. We have all the glory that he's ever going to give us, but in our position, but in our condition, we have no clue what that is.

So we're growing in the grace and the knowledge of who we are. That's the up ramp. That's the maturity up ramp. That's correct. Then through all that, he's to be glorified. And we glorify him as a result. So we laid that basic foundation. Then we're building upon it.

Then we looked at our identification with Christ. Because without understanding our identification with Christ, we're going to be wiped out when we come to a trial, to a suffering, to circumstances in life. So we came to our understanding as to who we are in Christ. Somebody help me now in terms of our identification with Christ. When we talk about identification with Christ, what do we mean?

Are you looking for the points of identification? Points of identification. Okay, where we are crucified, buried, resurrected, ascended, and seated with Christ in heaven. Okay. Okay, great. And remember the first aspect of that is an identification. We were baptized into who? into Christ, right?

In Romans 6.3, the first we were baptized, we were placed into, we were immersed into Christ. And from there on, His death, everything that Christ was identified with, we were identified with. Death, burial, resurrection, ascension, seating, etc. Okay? Because we're in Christ. Who died? It says, you know, that we died with him. Who died? Christ. He died. And who else died? We died also. We died also. And death means what? Separation. And then we were separated from what? Sin. The old nature. The old nature. Okay. Separated, we're cut loose.

We no longer need to be a slave to sin. Okay, so that was our second building block. Our third building block that we've been looking at is temptations. The reason why we're looking at temptations is that every trial, every suffering, every circumstance in life that comes to us, our initial response is going to be something other than the response the Lord would have us. And it's going to be a temptation. So it's going to be a temptation. And the temptation comes in many different ways. And we looked at a few in terms of anger, in terms of irritability, and being bitter, That's going to be our initial response to something that occurs in our life, that's beyond our control, that is unwanted. We don't want that suffering. We don't want that circumstance in life. We don't want that financial problem. We don't want that. a person not liking us or whatever it is.

So that's going to be our first response. So we've been looking at temptations. And so this is key. It's key to understand this because this is going to be our first response to And next week we're going to be looking at trials. We're going to be looking at the fiery trials that come to us. But the first thing that happens in a fiery trial is that the old man is going to respond this way. That's the very first thing, usually. It's like in our brief class. The question is, well, is that a rule? Can I break that? Well, usually that's a rule, but there are exceptions. Okay.

And so we've looked at it this way in terms of what a temptation is, that here we are, abiding in Christ. And we saw the process of temptation in James 1, verses 13-14, that we're drawn away from abiding in Christ by our lusts, by this epithymia, by inordinate desires of the sin nature. And there's this tugging, there's this drawing away, and there's this enticement, reward into thinking that it's going to be better, more satisfying to abide in the old nature, which we're very comfortable with. It's going to be more satisfying abiding there than it is in Christ. And the reason is because we don't know Him as well as we know the old nature normally. And so there's this drawing away. But we said that this drawing away, this enticement, is not sin. It's temptation. It's only when we take that bait, when we say, Okay, I'm going for it. We take the bait, it becomes sin.

So, what I want to do this morning is finish up on temptations and just show you in the book of James, because we're in the book of James, and just show you some of the temptations that are in the book of James. And then look at God's wonderful, wonderful provision for us when we're being tempted. So if you'll turn to James chapter 1. James chapter 1 and look at verse 19. It says, Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, Slow to wrath, for the wrath of man works not the righteousness of God.

Now, let me ask you a question. Isn't that the reverse of what we do? Let every man be swift to hear. We're slow to hear, right? And it says, slow to speak? We're rapid on that. Before we ever hear something, we're ready to respond. Before we hear someone out, we're ready to respond. I'm sorry. I don't have time to do that. Well, she hasn't even finished the sentence yet, right? And to ask the request, and here's our response. Slow to wrath. So the temptation is to be quick, swift, with a negative response, and quick to be irritable and angry.

I call that having a hair trigger. If you have a rifle or a pistol, especially if you have a pistol like a .45, in squeezing that trigger, it takes a long time to squeeze it and to keep your hand steady and to pull that trigger back. By the time you pull the trigger back, your hand is doing this. because the trigger has a lot of resistance to it. So you can modify your pistol to have what is called a hair trigger, to where when you just barely squeeze it, bang, it goes off. And that's essentially what we do.

As soon as we hear something or bang, we have a hair trigger. So there's a result. It says that, as a result of having a hair trigger, that it's not working out of us, out of our life, God's righteousness, or the very life of Christ. That's not Christ's life. So the exhortation, then, here, is to be quick Swift to hear it, that is, listen, listening to others, listening to the Spirit of God. Be slow, and the word for slow means not hasty, but to be slow, understanding, before speaking, before you say a word. slow to wrath, having a long fuse, and not to have impulsive outbursts of displeasure. This is This is the outliving of Christ through us, right here.

And I love Proverbs 15-1. When I worked at Buckley Air Force Base, we had a colonel who was a believer. He attended our Bible studies there. And he had a sign on his desk, a little plaque on his desk. It was Proverbs 15-1. And he had it there for all his officers to see. And it says, a soft answer turns away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger. Very appropriate. It's the universal truth. OK. Look at verse 22, James chapter 1, verse 22.

It says, But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any man be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like a man beholding his natural face in the mirror. For he beholds himself, and goes his way, and immediately forgets what manner of man he was. But whosoever looks into the perfect law or principle of liberty, and continues in it, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed." Okay. Doers versus hearers of the word. And it gives an analogy that a hearer of the word is one who beholds himself in the mirror and maybe forgets what matter he was. How many of you looked in the mirror this morning? How many of you remember how you look? But the thing is, as you look at yourself in the mirror, that's the response. Wow, terrible. But you walk away and you soon forget How terrible you look.

And one of the reasons why is because you don't feel as old as you look. Helmut doesn't feel as old as he looks. Isn't that true, Helmut? Helmut is a guy who is on rollerblades and rollerblades from downtown Denver out to Chatfield Dam and back. And he's paragliding off the mountains here. So he may look in the mirror and say, terrible. But when he gets away from that mirror, he doesn't feel that way at all. So we quickly forget in terms of how we look.

And so here's this analogy that's being used. The temptation to be here's only. of the Word and not doers. And this is essentially, I like what it's saying, that being a hearer only, just being a hearer of the Word, is beholding self versus Christ. You're beholding self versus Christ. And you're deceiving, and we are deceiving ourselves as just beholding self versus Christ.

And the word for deceive is the word legitimi. It's a misrecognizing or not counting God's word as effective in your life. That's what Ahirah does. Ahirah just hears the word and doesn't, and misreckons it, doesn't reckon it, doesn't count it to be true in his life, doesn't think it's going to be effective in his or her life.

And the opposite of that, of being a doer of the Word, is beholding Christ via the Word of God. It's beholding Him. And as we behold Him, we behold as it says in the passage, our liberty in Christ. So we behold our complete and total liberty in Christ. And then as we abide in that liberty, as we walk by faith in the liberty that we have in Christ, it says this, and it uses the word dinamite, it says, we do not become in our condition, who we are not in our position. Get that?

Forgetful hearers. It's a play on words here. We do not become, in our condition, who we are not in our position. In our position, we are not forgetful hearers. We are not. That's not who we are, forgetful hearers. And so, as we behold Him, we don't become forgetful hearers in our condition, because that's not who we are in our position. But there's a but there.

But we become, we become in our condition who we are in our position that is a doer of his work. And what happens is, as we behold him, as we're abiding in him, his interests are our interests. His very interests are our interests, and we identify then with His interests. And the interesting thing is, we become, as a result of that, we become a doer of the Word, only because we're resting in Him, and the Spirit of God leads us into the doing. And we don't have to sit down and crank out a list of what we're going to be doing to honor and glorify the Lord. He's going to be doing through us. So the end result is God's intent for us is being fulfilled in our life.

Because you remember in Ephesians 10, He created us unto good works, right? We are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus. or the word there, we are his workmanship, we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which were preordained. so that we can walk in them. God has determined what they were beforehand, so we don't have to be concerned about what the good works are. If we're abiding in Him, He's going to plug us in into His good works.

They're not going to be ours. Because oftentimes, in a believer's life, a believer sits down and says, what can I do for God today? That's usually what happens. A believer wants to please the Lord, so a believer says, I've got to please Him by doing. No, we please Him by being. We please Him by being and not doing. He'll do the doing through us.

It's key. Everybody's so quiet. It's probably a really stupid question, but would you explain genomi again? Or did you? Oh, genomi? Okay. It's an essence verb, and it just means to come into a new state of being. As opposed to, there's two essence verbs in the Greek. One is eimi. Eimi is a state of being in which we exists, continuously exists. Ginnomai is coming into a new state of being.

So that, in like John 1.14, and it says, or John 1.1, in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God, then you get down to verse 14, it says, the Word became flesh. And the Word became there is Ginnomai. He came into a new state of being, a state of being that he never existed before. He existed before as a spirit, and now he became a new state of being, flesh. Okay? That's what... Okay. Okay. We're going to kind of quickly... There's 15 temptations that I identified just going through the book of James. We're not going to go through all of them. Turn to verse 26 and 27 of chapter 1 of James.

It says, If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceives his own heart, this man's religion is vain. It's empty. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this. to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world."

Question. When you look at this word, religious, what comes to your mind? You know, if any man be religious, and if you've been around, if you've hung around here for any period of time, you know that we don't like the word Because religious connotates what? Works. And we're not to live by the law, by works, but we're to live by faith and grace. So this word, religious, think of it as this way. Just divine service, So, our divine service or religion is empty. It's of no value. It's vain if we are critical of others, because being critical of others is not of Christ.

And we are then just play actors, just like the Pharisees were, and Christ called them on it. in Matthew chapter 23. They played the religious role and they sat at the best places in the temple and the best places in the marriage ceremony. They had the best seats and they were looked up to. And they personified what being religious was with divine service. But here Christ comes along and says to them, you know, you're hypocrites. You know, you're hypocrites. And he said about seven or eight times, you're hypocrites. And hypocrite means to be a play actor. He says, you're nothing but play acting. And you look great on the outside. You're like wedded sepulchers on the outside. You look wonderful on the outside and clean, but you stink and you're rotten on the inside.

So anyhow, in the passage it says, pure religion, true religion, divine service, is having the same interest as God's interest. That our interest becomes His, and His interest is in others, whether it be the fatherless widows, and it lists those in the text. In James 2, verses 1-13, it talks about the temptation to show partiality and favoritism, and someone walking in the midst of the temple and some stranger and he has gold rings on and dressed nicely and if somebody were to walk into Holly Hills and they had a nice suit on and they looked great you would say, we would say, oh you sit here in the best place and someone came in looking like a bum And we would treat that person differently than we would someone who was dressed nicely. We're showing partiality. And God doesn't show partiality. So that's a temptation. Another temptation is to boast about our faith without works. So let's look at this one. James chapter 2, and look at verse 14.

It says this, What does the prophet, my brethren, though a man say he has faith, and not have works? Can faith save him alone? Let's stop right there, because this is a tough passage. What does the prophet, my brethren, though a man say he has faith, And that works. Can his faith save him? So here comes somebody that says, I've got faith. I can tell you all about my faith.

And I can recite to you John 3.16. And I can tell you all about the doctrine of angels. And I can tell you about the doctrine of redemption. And I have faith. But there's no works. Isn't this kind of comparison to the religious person and in chapter one, and true religion, and here we have a distinction between faith being false and real. Okay. Good point. Good point. So here's the question.

When it talks about saving here, salvation, what's it talking about? And it says, can his faith save him? So what salvation is it talking about? Because it goes down in the rest of the paragraph Like in verse 17, even so faith that has not works is dead, being alone.

So do things that are pleasing to God. Okay. Good faith, of course. Okay. The faith is a saving faith, though I don't like that term to qualify faith as of other saving, but it is a faith that is real. The faith comes first. and the showing forth of that faith comes after. Okay, excellent. So, in verse 14 here, is it talking about saving faith? Being saved from the penalty of sin?

Is there more than one kind of salvation? Okay, good question. Is there more than one kind? Is there more than one kind of salvation? Okay, we got half the class saying no. This is great. We got half the class saying yes. Okay, so if we look at the totality of God's plan of salvation, looking at the totality of God's plan of salvation. What's the first thing that we're saved from? The penalty of sin. And how are we saved from the penalty of sin? By what? By God's grace through faith. Total plan of salvation. Then after we're saved from the penalty of sin, Now we're believers. We're sons of God.

Our position will never change. It's eternal. It's immutable. We'll never change. We've been identified with Christ. And now, what are we being saved from now as believers? The power of sin. The power of the sin nature. Okay. Temptations. Okay. Yes. Temptations. We're being saved. were being delivered, and think of the word delivered, salvation delivered, out from the power of the sin nature, where comes the source of temptations.

Now, is that it, in terms of the total plan of salvation? No. There's the present system. Then in the future, we're going to be saved from the presence of sin. The presence of sin is that we're going to be delivered from the sin nature that involves us. We're going to be with Him. Our sin nature is going to go with His body into the ground. We're going to be free from the sin nature in terms of the presence of it. Now, so when we come to James, we have to ask the question, what salvation is James talking about here in verse 14? Is it the first one, being saved from the penalty of sin? Or is it being saved from the power of sin?

And certainly, from the context, it's not the future, right? So it's one of the two. How many? No, you have to raise your hand. So, anybody want to change their mind? Because we've got to come to an agreement here. I think it's the power. Okay, I think it's the power. Anybody want to vote on that?

James is one of the first writers of the New Testament. He wrote before Paul. And it was soon after the death, very resurrection of Christ that James was writing. And he's writing to the believers at the time, the church at the time, were mostly Jewish. Right? Mostly Jewish. And he's writing to Jewish believers. And these are people that believed. He's not writing to unbelievers, he's writing to believers.

So he's talking about their walk. As you go through the book of James, he's talking about their walk. to walk according to the Christ, according to the liberty that they have in Christ. So in verse 14, the works or the salvation here, it's talking about being saved from the power of the sin nature. And faith is faith in one's identification with Christ that they are delivered from that sin nature. So as we go through this, let me summarize it.

We can boast of our faith, all the biblical doctrines that we know, whatever, but that kind of faith is okay. Biblical doctrine is great. It's very important. But all it is is objective truth. Okay? It's just objective truth out from Scripture. But in and of itself, it's of no advantage. Just plain objective truth and just saying, yeah, I can tell you about the doctrine of resurrection. I can tell you about the doctrine of this. It is no profit.

And the reason is because it's the boasting where it comes out from. It comes out from the self trying to oppress man. And how many Christians do you know who can, who boast of what they know about scripture? But, and it says it can't save us. Having all of that doctrine can't save us, can't deliver us out of the power of this sin nature. Why? Because it's here and not here. Okay. Very good.

It's here and not here. has to become subjective truth. We have to take ownership of the truth. So you have all the objective truth, and it has to become subjective, that we own it. How do we own the truth? How do we come to the point where we say, that's ours, that's mine, that truth belongs to me.

How does that happen? Okay. Okay, there's a transfer. There's objective truth in scripture and then it becomes subjective to us. So the question, how does that happen? So do we try to walk in that truth and then it becomes subjective? Okay, did you hear what Ann Marie said? How about just believing it? So you have objective truth, and it becomes subjective, and the line between them is faith or resting it. It's saying, I believe that. So we can boast, but if it's not subjective, then it's of no value.

Good works, that is God's work, is the outward manifestation of one who has been justified and walking by faith. That's where good works come from. Good works is the natural outflow of just abiding in Christ. If we're abiding in Christ, then there's going to be good works.

It's like John 15. I am the vine, you are the branches. He that abides in me, the same bringeth forth what? Much fruit. For without me you can do nothing. So here's the vine, we're the branch, and out here's the fruit. The nature and quality of the fruit is determined by what? By the branch? Or by the vine? By the vine. The branch just carries the nature and the quality of the vine out to the fruit. Right? So, Christ is divine. So, love, joy, peace, long-suffering doesn't come from the branch. comes from the vine. And so the nature and quality of that fruit is dependent upon the vine and not the branch.

So essentially, I think that's what they're saying. There's a temptation to misuse and not restrain our tongues. And I love the example. And I decided not to go into this one. It's too many women. No. What's interesting is this. Is that we have a propensity to temptation. And men have a propensity to this kind of temptation. women have a temptation of propensity to this kind of temptation.

So, in general, okay, in general. Here's the rest, and just going down in the book of James, and this is just going through it and just picking out temptation to walk in human versus divine wisdom, to quarrel, enter into conflict, to friendship with the world, to be proud, not to be submissive to God, to judge others, and making decisions apart from God, to hoard wealth and live in pleasure and luxury, temptation to be impatient and compliant. So you can go through the book of James and that's what you find.

What's God's provision in all of this? Okay? What's His provision? And I think His wonderful provision we mentioned a couple weeks ago is in 1 Corinthians 10-13. For there is no temptation, but such is as common to man. But God is faithful, who will not suffer you or allow you to be tempted above that which you are able, but will, with the temptation, also provide a way of escape. Why? That you may be able to bear it or to endure it. And just very briefly, taking that verse apart in just pieces, no temptation is overtaking but such as is common to man.

Temptation here is this word paraspas. Remember we had Pirasmas, because sometimes it's used for test, but in most cases it means pirasmas, a solicitation to sin, that's the word that's used here, with the intent for us to fail. And the failure is to be drawing us away, pulling us away from abiding in Christ. Overtaking us simply means to lay hold of us spiritually. to attempt us to get us separated from our life source, which is Christ.

That is conditionally, not positionally. And it's common to man. We've talked about that. The reason why it's common to man is because we all have the sin nature and it's common. So your temptation is the same as mine. Then it goes on to say that This is the first wonderful but in the passage. There's two buts in the passage. This is the first one.

But, God is faithful. And if you can just think of one thing in this passage But God is faithful. And the word faithful, as indicated there, pistos, means trustworthy. You can trust Him. He'll never lie to us. He'll never say anything to us that isn't true. He'll always carry out what He says. He's faithful. He cannot be anything else.

And you see that little word is. And a couple of years ago we had a person that argued over what is is right. And and this. This is an essence verb, and we talked about essence verbs, the two kinds of essence verbs, Amy, again am I. Essence verb here is the state in which God continuously exists. It's talking about His very essence, His essential essence. God is faithful. He's trustworthy. That's His very character. It can't be anything else. And he can be trusted. We can trust him. And we can totally rely on what he says.

Then it goes on to say, is that, who will not allow you to be tempted above that which you are able. And the word allow means to permit. So he's not going to permit us to be tempted above that which we're able. Here is a wonderful truth that he knows your load limit. He knows my load limit. And he will not allow you to allow more than you are able to bear.

So, he's been there. He's been tempted. External temptation. Right? He's been external solicitation to sin. There was never any internal solicitation to sin with Christ because he's without sin. But he had all of the external temptation to sin that you and I will ever have. And so he's been there and he can emphasize with us and show us compassion.

Yes, David. I've heard that, I've misused that phrase, and I've heard it misused a lot. I'm not making a distinction on who's the old man and the new man. I'm not allowing you to be tempted above that you're able, and that you can be the new man, who you are in Christ, because my, any temptation is too much for my old man. Okay, okay.

And so you have to ask the question, where's the source of the temptation coming from? Right? Where's the source of the temptation? Let's say there's an external source, but the external source, I don't care if it's the world of the devil, right? with external temptation, it doesn't become a temptation until we react. The old man reacts. Then it becomes a solicitation to sin. I mean, there's an external solicitation to sin, but it doesn't become internal until we react to it.

Does that make sense? Until the sin nature says, Yeah, that looks attractive. That looks attractive. Thanks, David. Are you saying that you are not tempted above that? Tempted above that, you are able, that the you, is it the old man or the new man that's the you? Yes. And wouldn't the you be the believer in that decision to abide in the old man or the new man? And you as you. You're not schizophrenic. You as you. And you as a person. So that's what I think the you is. You as a person. And you've got two natures within you, but it's you.

OK. OK, so that's the next, right? But with the temptation, we'll also provide a way of escape. OK? And the escape here simply means a way out. OK? Did the bell ring? I'm looking at the clock. So he'll provide the way out. So what does that mean? Well, first of all, the you as a believer was certainly there. Right. You as a believer. And here is you as a believer. You, as a believer, are abiding. One place or the other. Either you're abiding in Christ or abiding in the flesh. And He provides a way of us. Here comes the temptation. And He provides a way out. He provides a way out. Now, here's my question. And we'll close. Think about this. We're building this foundation. Think about the foundation that we've laid. What is the way out? Resting in Christ. Resting in what? Resting in Christ, but resting in what truth?

That we're identified with Him. and because we're identified with Him, what? With respect to temptation. How do we correlate? Okay, so we correlate the temptation with our identification because we have been identified with Christ in His death. When He died, we died. He died unto that sin nature and we what? We died unto this in nature with him.

So we've been cut loose. We don't have to obey it in its lust. Isn't that wonderful? Would it be correct to go on a little bit further, Hal, and say that we just say no to this temptation? That brings back into our doing of it. And we say no, and we do say no, because of who we are. Right? And we say no because that isn't me any longer. My history in Adam has terminated. That's not who I am anymore. Okay.

Father, we're again just thankful for this time together. And we thank you, Father, for your faithfulness in each and every one of our lives. And faithful, Father, in just every detail in our life, even those negative things that come at us, that you know about them. And we thank you that you are such that you're concerned and you can deliver us from each and every one of these temptations, and you have the way of escape. We thank you, Father, for the fact that you have so identified us in your Son, that we are dead, that we've been separated and cut loose from the old man, the source of our temptations. We give you thanks now in Christ's name. Amen.