The Nature of Evil: A Biblical Perspective on Satan

Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast, where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.

My name is Pastor Josh, and I want to thank you for listening to this podcast.

I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen you in the word of God.

Now, come along.

Let's look into the Bible and see what God has for us here today.

All right, let's go ahead and get ready to continuing our study that we started last week.

And as many of you know, we're going through various questions that have been given to me.

And one of the questions that was asked was, who is Satan?

How does he work?

What's.

What's the dynamic of Satan?

And.

And how he comes after us?

And how did Satan fall?

What was that all about?

And, you know, some people say we don't need to study Satan.

We don't need to study evil, we don't need to study hell.

I just want to hear the good stuff.

Well, that sounds great until we actually look at what scripture says.

And the Bible says, be.

Be sober.

First Peter, chapter five, Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil.

And.

And.

And so it says right there, be sober, be vigilant, be ready, be on guard, because Satan is our enemy.

And.

And there are other passages of scripture that.

That talk about Satan being our enemy.

Um, and it talks about how he's walking about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

And so the idea would be that we need to be careful of what we do in our lives and how we go about our lives and how we are combating our against the enemy.

So we should know our enemy.

We should be prepared.

And.

And the Bible warns us to do so.

And so last week, we talked about really who Satan is in.

In scripture.

I'm not who Satan is when it comes to Hollywood or a book that you read or, you know, a painting that you may have seen.

But what does the Bible say about Satan?

And we went to two passages of scripture.

We looked at the passage in Isaiah, we looked at the passage in Ezekiel, which describes to some degree the look of Satan, what his appearance was, and his original sin, that was pride.

He wanted to be like God, and so he was cast out.

And so we then picked it up in Genesis, chapter three.

And we looked at how Satan tempted Eve and Adam and brought about that first temptation with Adam and Eve.

And ultimately Adam and Eve sin.

And remember what they tried to do?

They tried to blame someone else.

Eve, you know, blamed Satan.

Adam blamed his wife.

And.

And so that.

That is sometimes what happens when we have individuals, Christians who, who fall, or really unsaved people for that matter.

When, when they fall into a sin, they, they.

The.

The tendency in our flesh is to push it off on somebody else.

Um, and even as Christians, we, we talk about, well, Satan made me do it.

Well, no, he didn't.

We're gonna talk about that whole aspect of temptation here this evening.

And, and remember if, if you weren't here last week or if you were here last week, I'll still review this.

There are three elements that bring temptation in this world, right?

We have Satan, obviously.

He's.

He's the enemy.

He is the one who is attacking the people of God, the ways of God, the work of God.

But we do know that there's the world.

We're going to talk about the world here this evening.

Um, that's.

That's Satan's system that he has put about.

Because the Bible does say that he is the, the lowercase G God of this world.

And so Satan is, is roaming about this world.

Satan is not trapped in hell.

Satan is not the king of hell.

Satan is walking about this world.

And so he is, is at this point allowed to do that.

We talked about how he is not omnipotent.

We talked.

And that's all powerful.

We talked about how he's not omnipresent.

He's not everywhere at once.

And we talked about how he's not omniscient.

He doesn't know everything, okay?

He's a created being of God.

He's not equal to God.

He's not an eternal being.

He's not equal to Jesus.

There, there are some belief systems out there, some cults out there that actually teach that Jesus is, is Satan's brother.

They're brothers and they're at odds with each other.

And that.

That is not the case.

That's not what the Bible teaches in any stretch of the imagination.

And so we, we know that there is this world, but then the Bible also talks about our flesh.

So, so there's Satan.

The world and our flesh.

These are all sources of, of sin in our life.

But ultimately we can't blame any of those things.

We have to blame ourselves.

And I want to take you to a passage of scripture that talks about that, because tonight we're going to talk about not so much who Satan is in his appearance or his history or his origin.

We're going to talk more tonight about Satan's tactics.

What does Satan do?

What did he do from the very beginning?

Well, we know that he came and tempted.

The Bible tells us in Matthew chapter 4 that Satan is the tempter.

We also see that in the book of first Thessalonians, Satan is characterized as the tempter.

So we know that in his character, he tempts.

But I want to go to the book of James first because I'm trying to set up a framework to understand the way that Satan tempts us.

So James chapter one and go to verse number 13 with me and I'm going to talk really fast tonight, and you're going to think really fast and listen really fast, and we're going to try to cover as much ground as we can.

I really want this to be a three part series.

I don't know if I can get everything in.

There's a lot of content in scripture about these types of things.

But we need to talk about temptation tonight because Satan is the tempter.

And, and so we need to know how to deal with temptation because temptation's gonna come into our life.

And a lot of people are taught this, that, that temptation is sin.

Well, we're gonna see very clearly tonight that temptation is not the sin, okay?

Sin actually happens after the temptation.

And we're actually gonna see that the Bible gives us a formula to sin being conceived and giving.

What we are gonna see here is a very disgusting picture of death.

And, and so starting verse number 13 in James chapter one with me, we're gonna start with the idea of temptation and how temptation turns to sin.

You say, I thought we were studying Satan.

Well, this is what Satan uses as a tool.

But at the end of this, we're gonna see that we cannot blame anybody else except ourselves.

So verse 13, it says, Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God.

And so actually what, what he's warning against is people saying, well, you know what?

God allowed this to happen to me.

It's God's fault that I did this.

It's.

I was born this way.

And so therefore this is God's fault.

You ever heard someone justify a perceived sin because they said, hey, I was born this way.

I have natural inclinations to do this, so therefore it must be okay.

The Bible says, no, God did not create you this way.

And we are marred by the fall, which we talked about last week.

Genesis chapter three, we're marred by the fall, and that's the, the fall of man.

Therefore, that brought about sin in this world.

And therefore, yes, all of us have natural inclinations towards sin, but that doesn't justify sin.

And that doesn't put it on God.

So he says, let no man say when he's tempted, I am tempted of God.

For God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he, any man.

So the idea here would be that, that God is, is.

Is not a sinner like we are.

Therefore he is not going to bring that temptation to us.

Now he allows these temptations to happen, but he is not the source of that temptation.

Verse 14.

But every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust.

Meaning we're drawn away with the things that look good to us, that feel good to us, that make sense to us.

And we're going to talk about three categories of sin here this evening.

That, that we, we fall into.

We're not there yet.

But it says that when we're drawn away of our own lust and enticed.

And the picture that's here is, is a trap, a lure, if you will.

And I mentioned this a while back, you know, if you, if you've ever been fishing, whether you're a good fisherman or not or fisherwoman or not, you're gonna throw a bait out.

And the goal is for fishing.

Unless you're those types of people that say, I don't care if I catch any fish.

I just like to sit there in peace and quiet.

That's fine.

But when I go fishing, I want to catch something, okay?

So you take a bait and.

And you try to get something that's going to look like what that fish eats, or you actually throw out live bait, something that the fish actually does eat, and you slip a hook in there.

And when the fish bites, you pull the hook in.

That's what this word is talking about, enticed, meaning Satan is going to make a temptation look attractive and, and he's going to get to a place where he lures in front of somebody.

And it says that when we're drawn away with the things that we want and we are enticed.

And then it says, and then when lust hath conceived.

And so it's harder to see in the English, but in the Greek it's very clear.

This is mirroring birth.

So there's conception, okay?

So there's the temptation that meets the lust with the enticement that comes together.

And there's that conception of this, as it says here, it is conceived and it bring forth sin.

And so basically, sin is formed when the temptation is there and our fleshly lust desires meet that temptation and we give into that temptation.

Sin is then conceived and then so, so, so that's the sin.

But then it's actually going to talk about what that sin brings to us in our life.

And sin, when it is finished or birthed, bringeth forth death.

And so actually, the picture here, if you're reading the original language, is basically a stillbirth, okay?

Birth of death.

It's the opposite of new life.

It's the opposite of what John3 talks about when it's talking about being born again.

And so in the concept of sin, he says, okay, sin is a.

It starts with the temptation.

Then lust comes in and we desire that sin and we consummate that sin.

And therefore at that point, it's conceived.

And at that point it's gonna bring forth death.

And that speaks of the end of that sin, destruction and, and hopelessness and, and, and, and whole.

And ultimately we know the wages of sin is death.

Now we know that God's grace and then the salvation that's extended to us supersedes that death.

We know that ultimately we have hope in Jesus Christ.

But that's the picture of the temptation.

Now we're gonna pause here, and we're going to look at an example of this actually happening.

We actually have an example of Satan coming to an individual and tempting him this very same way with three elements of sin.

And we're going to look at that now.

But before we get there, I want you to see those three elements of sin, because you're going to need to know these things, okay?

You need to identify the tools that Satan is using.

So, so let's look at First John, chapter two.

First John, chapter two.

We're gonna get to our main text in Matthew chapter four this evening.

But so far we've talked about what temptation is, how temptation can turn to sin, and the outcome of that sin.

But, but we need to look at, at the categories of sin in this world because really Satan has one lie, that this sin is better than what God has for you.

And he really only packages three different sins, okay?

And we're gonna see that here in John chapter.

First John, chapter two.

He says, Love not the world.

This is verse 15.

Love not the world.

So.

So we know that the world system is what Satan has set into place.

Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.

If any man loved the world.

And by the way, this is not talking about, like, the world earth.

Like, I, I don't love this earth.

I hate this.

He's talking about the world system, okay?

If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him for all that is in the world.

The lust of the flesh.

Remember that lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world.

I want you to remember those three things because when we can identify what those are, we're able to identify what that temptation is when.

When we can categorize it in these areas.

So lust of the flesh, what feels good?

Okay.

This is good for me.

Lust of the eyes.

This looks.

This looks attractive.

This is something that's appealing to my.

My.

My vision, my.

My sight.

And then the pride of life.

It's all wrapped up in pride.

It's all wrapped up in me.

It's all wrapped up in me.

First, I, um, step on everyone else.

Get to the top.

That's what pride of life is all about.

So I want you to remember those three things, because we're gonna go to Matthew chapter four, and we're gonna see the example of Jesus, how to fight against temptation.

We're gonna see two different things in Matthew chapter four.

We're gonna see, number one, how Satan tries to tempt.

And we see a perfect example of how to combat that temptation.

Now, a lot of people say, why is this passage of scripture here?

And there's a lot of theologians that will argue why this passage is here, but we can at least all agree on this is an example for us as believers to learn how to fight against the enemy.

Now, we know that we are not God.

We know that we are not Jesus.

But remember, everything that Jesus did in his life was an example for us to follow.

Right?

Because.

Because he was 100% man.

100% God, but 100% man.

And so what Jesus does here is he gives us the blueprints to fight against the enemy, to fight against temptation.

And so I want you to see this here in Matthew chapter four with me.

Temptation is.

Is usually greater after a public declaration of our faith.

Okay, you might say, what does that mean?

The more that you publicly declare trying to serve God and trying to live for him, the.

The more the temptations will come.

And.

And you say, well, show me that.

I can show you that right before Matthew chapter three, what happens?

Jesus's public display of his earthly ministry.

Okay, so.

So Jesus is baptized in the Jordan and now publicly comes on the scene to say, look, I am going to be teaching and preaching as the Messiah.

So Jesus makes a public display of who he is.

Prior to that, many people did not understand who Jesus was.

John the Baptist knew, but everyone else thought, remember, Jesus is just the Carpenter son.

They didn't understand who Jesus was.

Now many of them still didn't understand.

But Jesus is now proclaiming who he is.

And if you remember, what, what did John say when Jesus comes down to the baptism, behold the Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world.

So, so Jesus has made a public display of a declaration of, of, of who he is.

And many times in our life, testing will come when we make a public display or make a stand for something to be true when it comes to the word of God.

So, so Jesus's temptations are going to follow those same three patterns that we talked about in first John, lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.

And we're gonna look into that.

So verse number one, it says, then Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.

So we know that this is God's will for this to happen.

And by the way, that's why many cases we, we say, well, why did God allow this temptation to happen?

Well, that word temptation in and of itself just means test a trial.

The, the, the trial is not the sin.

It's, it's how we deal with that trial is whether or not it's a good thing of growth or a bad thing of sin.

And, and so it says that Jesus is led into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.

And when he had fasted 40 days and 40 nights, he was afterward and hungered.

Now there's, there's a lot that we could say about that in verse number two.

Obviously Jesus was preparing himself through fasting for this moment.

Um, but, but others would say, you know, sometimes Satan might attack you in your weaker physical moments and you, you might be able to project that there.

But nonetheless, I think that this is a lesson for us to be ready for temptation.

Verse 3, it says, and when the tempter, remember we said that that's one of the names of Satan, the tempter came to him.

He said, if thou be the son of God, command that these stones be made bread.

So this is the first temptation.

You might say, well, what is Satan trying to do here?

Um, well, well obviously Satan is appealing to Jesus's physical need of hunger, right?

We just learned that Jesus went 40 days without eating.

And, and we know that Jesus was a hundred percent man.

We know that Jesus had hunger.

We know that Jesus had pain.

And, and so at this point, our, our Lord is, is hungry and the devil tempts him to change these stones into bread.

And he replies with, with scripture Jesus actually replies with scripture.

And if you've been taught this passage before you, you will know what I'm going for here.

It's the idea that this is the tools that we use against temptation, the word of God.

What does Jesus use?

Jesus uses scripture to combat against the enemy.

And so this, this first temptation here is a temptation that appeals to Jesus.

Feeding himself.

Okay, lust of the flesh.

Okay, I'm going to answer Satan, and Satan is going to give me what I need physically.

Okay.

Now Jesus answered and said, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

You would say, well, that sounds pretty noble that Jesus would say that.

Well, Jesus is saying that for a couple of reasons.

One, because he is God and he wrote scripture.

But number two, he's appealing to actually a passage of scripture.

That's Deuteronomy, chapter 8, verse 3.

And so Jesus uses the word of God to combat against the lust of the flesh.

Okay, I don't live by bread alone.

I.

I live by the word of God.

And so that's his initial stand against the enemy is this.

Satan is always going to try to get us to appeal to something else other than scripture.

Okay, so it might be the lust of the flesh.

It might be that we're hungry.

He's gonna appeal to our hunger.

We, we might be trying to possibly go after this, and this might feel good to us.

And Satan is gonna try to use that as our reasoning tool, not the word of God.

And so one of Satan's tactics is we're gonna see here in a little bit that he will actually, if he knows that we will not fall for appealing to something outside of scripture, he will try to twist scripture, but he's not at that point yet.

At this point, he's gonna try to just say, like, try to base your decisions off of something else other than scripture.

Okay, what does Jesus do?

He responds in the perfect way.

He.

He responds with, hey, no, I am not going to appeal to bread alone.

But every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God, it's God's word that I'm going to trust in this temptation.

So you say, what do I do?

Well, when the temptation comes, we appeal to scripture.

What does God say about this?

Not the world, not my flesh, not my friends, not.

Not my.

My co workers.

But what does God say about this?

And when we appeal to something in the eyes of God, what.

What would God say about this relationship?

What would God say about this decision?

What would God say about this change that I'm making in my life, well, go to Scripture and we match it up.

And if it does not match up with Scripture, we don't do it and we reject it.

And, and that's why the Holy Spirit's there for us.

Because you might say, well, Pastor, I might not be able to pull out a Bible and find a passage of Scripture.

In that case, well, number one, be prepared.

Be, be ready.

Have, have your scriptures memorized.

Have your scriptures, if you meditate upon them daily, you're going to have more and more of a, an acumen to pull that up.

But what I will say is that the Holy Spirit is also given to us so that we might understand the conviction and we might understand the peace of the Holy Spirit and that.

And that is all tied together to the Christian walk.

So the first appeal to the flesh, Jesus responds with the word.

He responds with the sufficiency of the Word of God.

And so the second temptation comes in the realm of the pride of life.

So the lust of the flesh.

He's hungry.

Turn the stones into bread.

Now you would say, well, couldn't Jesus have done that?

Theologically speaking?

Jesus could have, but it would have been an assertion of Satan telling Jesus to do so in his obedience to Satan.

That.

That would be him.

Yes, I could do that, but I'm going to be doing it for the wrong reasons because Satan is appealing to it.

And that's really what we're seeing here.

And then let's move on.

So, so Jesus is tempted with the lust of the flesh.

And now the next one is going to be the, the pride of life.

And so the second temptation comes in verse number five.

Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city and set of him on the pinnacle of the temple and saith unto him, if thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down.

For it is written, he shall give his angels charge concerning thee, and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against the stone.

And then we're gonna see verse 7, Jesus's response.

And Jesus said unto him, it is written again, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.

And, and so here what happens is the devil uses, actually scripture.

He uses Psalm 91.

But, but what he does here is he twists it.

What, what he's trying to get Jesus to do in temptation was to get Jesus to abuse his powers to, to, to take it out of context.

And, and so if Satan is the initiator of this decision, it's the wrong decision.

And so he says, hey, Jesus, jump off this temple.

The angels will save you.

The angels will protect you.

You know you have a purpose.

Well, could Jesus have done that?

And could he have been protected?

Is that Scripture?

Yes, but again, it's the start of it.

It's the temptation.

It's Satan trying to get Jesus to do what Satan wants him to do.

And so what happens here is the devil uses passage of scripture.

Now you would say, what's the lesson that we can learn from that?

The lesson that we can learn from that is if Satan can get you to reject scripture completely, what he will try to do is try to use scripture and twist it and take it out of context.

There are plenty of people over the years that have pointed to a sin in their life and use scripture to justify it or twist Scripture out of context to justify what they are doing.

That is common.

You can take passages of scripture, as we say, out of context, or twist their meaning or apply it to today's culture and miss out on the whole understanding of what God wants us to be.

So I'm not going to give a ton of examples of that because we could get into a rabbit trail.

But what I will say is this.

God wants us to take his word as it is written, to take it in context, to understand his whole message.

And so what Satan does, Satan knows scripture.

By the way, Satan understands scripture better than probably most Christians that walk around, all right, he's going to be able to quote it, he's going to be able to twist it.

And if we are not prepared and if we are not ready, if we are not equipped with the Word of God and comfortable with the Word of God and understanding the Word of God, it will be very easy to buy into those lies.

And so what does Jesus do?

Well, Jesus responds with another scripture passage.

Deuteronomy, chapter 6, verse 16.

He says this.

It is written again, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.

So he's understanding what Satan is doing.

Satan is tempting Jesus to do something that's not part of God's will, not part of God's plan.

And so Jesus says, no, again, you're twisting it.

You're tempting God in that twisting.

And therefore I will not follow through.

And so that that was the pride of life.

And then what we can see here is the third temptation concerns the lust of the eyes, verse eight.

It says in verse eight again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain and showeth him all the kingdoms of the world and the Glory of them.

And now remember, Satan has at that time and still today, if you want to call it jurisdiction of this world, Satan has that authority right now.

Now ultimately God is the full authority.

Uh, but Satan had in his mind felt like he had the right to offer this to Jesus.

Basically, Jesus, you can become the king of the world.

That's what he's saying.

He says, look at all the kingdoms of the world and look at all the glory that they have.

Verse 9.

He saith unto him, all these things, all these kingdoms will I give thee if thou will fall down and worship.

Now we know that Jesus ultimately will be king of the world, right?

Prince of peace.

The government will rest upon his shoulder.

That's, that's who the Messiah is.

And, and what Satan is offering Jesus is a, is a easy way out to circumvent God's will.

God's will was Jesus would go to the cross and pay the price for our sins and ultimately be culminated as the Messiah one day at the end times.

But Satan is saying, hey, don't follow the Father's will.

I can give, which I'm gonna give it to you right now.

And, and, and so this is the lust of the eyes, this is the attractional thing to say, look, look at all these things that you can have.

This is a quick route to being the Messiah.

You know, this would be bypassing what we would call the most important week ever is the week leading up to Jesus crucifixion.

Um, this would be bypassing all the things that God had ordained.

And so the devil at that point had control over the kingdoms of the world.

Ephesians chapter two tells us that.

But he was going to offer Jesus this if Jesus gave him his allegiance, his worship.

And you know, I think that so many times we think about, well I'm not like, I'm not like a Satan worshiper or anything.

The Bible very clearly says that if we are, if we are rejecting God doesn't matter, it doesn't matter what we're worshiping in this world.

It could be a golden idol or it could be ourselves or it could be some cult like figure.

The Bible says that if we are not worshiping the true God, we are ultimately on the side of the enemy.

We are enemies of God, we are enmity with God.

And so I'm gonna make a statement that's gonna probably be a little grading here.

And you know, it's in love, but I think it's scriptural.

Anything outside of Christ, like salvation or Christ centered salvation is of the of Satan.

Any false religion outside of true biblical Christianity is of Satan.

I'm just gonna say that, okay?

Because the reality is, is that Satan has created all these different ways, all these different religions, all these different cults so that there can be confusion in this world.

Uh, I, I, I've heard it said there's mountaintop theology.

Like you start on this side of the mountain, I start on this side of the mountain.

It doesn't matter how we get up, but once we get to the top, we're all believers, right?

That's the message that is being taught in this world.

And what we're going to see even further in the future in the end times.

That's the, that's the big lie that everyone can reach heaven the same way.

Everyone is just all, it's all about being genuine.

It's all about being a good person.

And, and so what the Bible very clearly teaches is that, hey, you know what?

If you're not worshiping Jesus, you are worshiping Satan, you are worshiping the enemy.

And therefore what we see here in this case is that there's a call for Jesus to worship Satan.

And, and Jesus obviously rejects it.

And, and you know, he, he again points to scripture here and, and I think it's important to see that then Jesus said to him, verse 10, get thee, get thee hence, Satan.

For it is written, thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him alone.

Him only shalt thou serve.

And so there Jesus replies in a firm way with a scripture passage.

Deuteronomy, chapter 6, verse 13.

And so all three of these angles of attack, Jesus answers with scripture.

And so the lesson that we can learn from this is that Satan is gonna use the same package.

He might try to dress it up a different way, but it's always gonna be lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, pride of life.

So what's the answer for us?

The same way.

Jesus could have responded in many different ways, but he responded with scripture for an example for us, to show us that there is power in the word of God.

And, and you might say, well, how do we, how do we know that?

Show me in scripture other passages that actually say that.

Well, Ephesians chapter six, keep, stay with me in Matthew chapter four.

But we're gonna go to Ephesians chapter six.

Most of you know what Ephesians chapter six all about.

Ephesians chapter six is what's called the armor of God.

There's a list there of the armor of God.

And a little while, I think it was last summer, we Went through a study in Ephesians chapter six at our church.

We had a whole booklet that we went through and we talked about the armor of God.

And all the elements of the armor of God are important, right?

You need all the elements because he says, put on all of the armor of God, not, not just one element of the armor of God.

So, so there's the helmet of salvation, breastplate of righteousness.

All, all the different elements of the armor of God, which are very, very important.

But the Bible does give us one offensive weapon against the enemy.

It can be offensive and defensive.

There's, there's an argument there, but nonetheless, there's one offensive weapon.

And if you go to Ephesians chapter 6 and you look at verse number 17, it says, and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.

The Bible says that one of the tools that we can do to combat the enemy.

Remember we looked at this last week, that, that Satan is firing these darts at us, these fiery darts at us, and he's trying to attack us.

And what the Bible says here is that the offensive weapon that we have is the word of God.

So we have to be ready.

We have to arm ourselves with scripture.

And that's what Jesus did.

And, and so at the end of verse 10, Jesus says, Hey, I only serve God.

I only worship God.

And he says here, this case we know that he quotes that passage of scripture.

And then I like what verse number 11 says, because, you know, a lot of times I think that people feel like the victory cannot be won.

I've heard people say things and, and even probably sometimes in my life, I've said, you know what?

I can't get victory over.

This scene's not letting.

Seems, not letting me go on this.

The Bible doesn't say when it'll happen.

But the Bible does say that when we fight against the enemy, it says there, then the devil leaveth him.

And behold, angels came and ministered unto him.

And I think the lesson here is that even though fighting temptation is sometimes difficult, eventually the Bible says, rebuke the devil and he will flee from you.

There, there.

There is a point of relief and, and there is victory.

And the Bible says that even Jesus was ministered to by the angels.

Now, some people would argue, well, does that mean that every time I fight temptation, an angel comes and ministers to me?

I, I can't, I can't equate that to the same situation.

But what I can say is that God will comfort you.

And that's at at the end of the day, Jesus found comfort in.

In that, and so we will find comfort as well.

And the Bible speaks of comfort.

And.

And the Bible actually speaks of this idea in First Corinthians, chapter 10.

You know, there.

There are many temptations that we fall into because our flesh is.

Is weak.

Our flesh is weak.

And.

And I've even again heard the argument, well, we're all just human, so therefore, we.

We just.

If the temptation comes, like, what else do you expect?

Like, I'm just.

I'm human.

And that is true.

But.

But what we're gonna see here is that we're not just working as fleshly humans.

We are working with the power of God on our side if we're believers.

And.

And so if we have God on our side, he will allow temptations to happen.

But what we're gonna see in First Corinthians, chapter 10, verse 13, is.

Is very important to see.

And a lot of people will use this as a verse and somewhat take it out of context and say, God's not gonna give you more than you can handle today.

I understand what some people mean by that, but some people take that out of context and say, well, you know what?

You know what?

If.

If God.

God is gonna give me every.

You know, God's not gonna allow anything to happen in my life that I can't fight on my own.

That's not what he's saying here.

What he's saying is, is that God always allows a way out for, or the temptation that is coming to you.

So.

So I want you to see that in verse number 13 of First Corinthians, chapter 10.

And I think that that's important to see here, because as a Christian, I think that so many times we just think, well, whoops, I sin now.

I'm gonna come into this place of either guilt or burden, and hopefully I can find repentance.

And there is beauty in that.

There's beauty in forgiveness.

And God does forgive us.

But the Bible doesn't give us justification just to keep sinning.

The Bible says in Romans, chapter six, should we continue to sin, that grace may abound.

He says, God forbid.

So.

So if God gives us tools to fight against temptation, the expectation would be to fight against temptation.

And so First Corinthians, chapter 10, verse 13, it says, There had no temptation taken you.

But as is common to man.

What are you talking about there?

Well, what we're talking about here is this idea that when we think that we're the only people that have ever been tempted this way.

And in this area, the Bible says no, it's a common temptation.

We, we, we all are tempted.

All Christians are tempted.

You're not alone in this and Satan wants you to feel alone.

Satan wants to isolate you.

I mean, if you've ever watched so, so I think this is a biblical analogy.

What does the Bible say in First Peter, chapter five?

What, what, what animal does scripture liken Satan to?

Walketh about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.

Okay, now some of you may or may not be interested in what I'm about to talk about.

I'm very interested in wildlife and nature shows and I like to watch nature shows.

So some of the nature shows that I like to watch.

You're hearing a confession moment here.

I like to watch when the predator goes after the prey, you know, so you have like on the Serengeti, the, the lion that's out there and there's this little impala, little gazelle looking thing.

And what the lions do is, is actually they, they try to weed out the strong ones and they try to like pull aside a smaller, more sick one and try to isolate them so that they can attack.

Right, right.

And, and that's what Satan is going to try to do.

Satan's going to try to pull you away and make you feel more isolated and make you feel alone, like you can't fight this and maybe even attack you in a weaker moment, maybe in a moment like even with Jesus, that he was hungered that, that he can take you in, as the Bible says, devour you.

Now if you watch those shows, it's, it depends on who you're rooting for.

Some people root for the lion, some people root for the little gazelle.

It all just depends on, on that, that day that I'm feeling.

But, but at the end of the day, what we can see is that what Satan wants us to do is he wants us to think that we are alone.

What God wants us to do is understand that we're not alone.

Number one, he's with us.

He's gone through it.

He's fought the temptation and others have as well.

And, and so you're, you're not alone.

And so God says, I'm with you.

And then also I believe that that's why, and one of the many reasons why God instituted the church, the church as an institution is to come alongside of and help people and, and, and be a support to people in the midst of temptation and in the midst of trials, in the midst of pain, in the midst of suffering.

So that there isn't that isolation because it's.

We'll speak real here this evening.

If you're out of church for a period of time, the more you're out of church, the more you're out of fellowship, the.

The more easy it is to stay out of that fellowship.

And.

And the Bible very clearly teaches that there is an importance to the community, and the community would be that you're not alone in this.

And so that's what.

That's what the scripture is talking about.

You had no temptation taking you, but such as is common to man, but God is faithful.

So.

So again, it's.

It's not that you are a superhero because you're a Christian.

It's because of who God is that we're able to fight against temptation.

Because I used to think when I became a pastor, this is.

This was my ignorance and this was my naivety that when I became a pastor, I would be able to.

I wouldn't even have temptations anymore because I would be so spiritual.

I'd be in the spiritual position of a pastor, and therefore the temptations wouldn't come.

I'm gonna tell you, leading up to being a pastor, the moment I became a.

And there was various steps of this, but the moment that I was ordained, the moment that I became a pastor, those temptations did not go away.

Um, and so it's not about me being a strong superhuman that can fight these temptations on my own.

What does it say there?

God is faithful.

It is God who gives us the victory over these temptations.

So he says, God is faithful who will not suffer or allow you to be tempted above that you are able, but will, with the temptation, also make a way to escape, that you may be able to bear it.

Meaning this.

God always allows a way.

There's.

There is no cage that.

That you are locked in that you say, well, I couldn't choose anything but this sin.

The Bible says that there's always a way out.

It might not be the easy way, it might not be the most convenient way.

It might not be the way that's accepted in culture, but the Bible says there always is a way out of temptation.

And.

And what I can tell you here, scripturally speaking, is that God will allow you to follow him and obey him.

Will you make a mistake?

Yes.

Will I make a mistake?

Yes.

And there's forgiveness in that.

But the Bible clearly teaches that.

That we can be victorious, and then we can thank God for the deliverance and the temptation.

And the Bible actually says that when we are able to endure those trials and temptations.

It actually strengthens us and gives us more hope.

And so that we can, we can learn from Jesus's responses to the temptations exactly how we are to respond with scripture, with scripture, with prayer, with, with spiritually relying on the truth of God.

And so the forces of evil in this world will come at us from many different directions with different types of temptations.

But at the core, it's always this lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh and the pride of life.

And when we can recognize these things, we're able to combat these temptations with, with saturating our hearts and minds with the truth of God.

Remember the original thing that Satan tried to do?

He tried to appeal to something else outside of Scripture.

Jesus's hunger.

And so what Satan will try to do is he will try to take us away from the truth and he will try to get us to a place that we're defining truth outside of Scripture.

One of the, one of the more painful things that I hear people say is, well, my truth.

Well, if it's not grounded in the truth of God, it's, it's, it's, it's lies.

Okay?

Now if your truth is the word of God, fantastic.

But there, there is not.

And I would be willing to talk more about this if you disagree.

But I do believe that there, there are no just subjective things in this world.

Subjective truth, there's objective truth in the word of God.

Okay?

Now there are some things that have gray area in scripture that it is not spoken to.

But what the Bible clearly speaks on discussion over, that's, that's what the Bible says.

And so it's, it's not what the world defines.

What God defines is, is not up to the world to define.

And, and so what we need to do is we need to see that and we need to understand that, hey, you know what?

Satan might say.

This, this might be a deceptive thing, but ultimately we know that God is final.

And therefore the sword of the spirit is our offensive weapon against the enemy.

Now there's so much more that we could talk about, but we will stop there.

But just if you can remember a couple different things.

Satan attacks with the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, pride of life.

He always tries to appeal to you to neglect scripture.

If he can't get you to neglect Scripture, he wants you to see it twisted.

And if he can't see it twisted, he wants to try to corrupt us and offer us things that aren't really his to offer.

And you know what?

I.

I've tried to explain.

I try to simplify sin to the point of, like, sin is believing a lie from the enemy.

Sin is believing that what Satan is offering is better than what God is offering.

It's really what it is.

And so many times we are careless in our life.

We're just so careless because I.

And I think that what happens is.

Is the reason why we are careless is because it's a misunderstanding of grace.

Um, there's a.

There's a author.

There's an author out there that I really enjoy reading.

I can't back all of his theology.

Um, but his name is Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Diedrich Bonhoeffer wrote a book called Discipleship, the Cost of Discipleship.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer actually died as a martyr.

But at the end of the day, he.

He taught this thing called cheap grace.

And he says if we are not careful, if we are not on guard in understanding what God did for us, we will treat things as cheap grace.

Meaning God graced me with this.

But, hey, whatever.

I'm just gonna keep doing what I wanna do.

Like, hey, the church is there to help me in my life, but I just keep living it the way that I want to live it.

Romans chapter 6 warns us against that.

And I think what we do in churches is that we want to preach the gift of grace, and we should preach the gift of grace, but we should also preach the responsibility of the Christian to live a life that honors God in every way.

And that this is a war.

This.

A lot of people think that Christianity today is like a game.

Like the stakes are.

Are high.

We can just bounce out of that, you know, when.

But.

But we are in a spiritual battle, and the battle is a difficult thing.

And.

And the battle is.

Sometimes it takes casualties, and sometimes what we see in the battle is that if we are not prepared for the enemy, he can wipe out great swaths of people and can make.

Make a movement happen or whatever.

But I would.

I would warn you in this case to.

To take the attack seriously, to not give Satan more credit than he deserves, but to take it seriously and to fight against him in the power of God.

Now, why would you say that?

Why I say that is because we are fighting a defeated foe.

But he's doing everything that he possibly can in the time that he has to try to pull down everyone with him and maybe try to change the script that.

That God has.

But I will tell you that he is a defeated foe.

And so next week, what we're going to Talk about is we've looked at his, what we would call his origin.

We've, we looked at basically kind of his characteristics, we've looked at his tactics, we've looked at all of these things.

But I want us to look next week at his demise.

Okay, so the Bible actually gives us the end of the story.

And the end of the story is that Satan is defeated.

How is he defeated?

We'll talk about that.

And, and actually the defeat, the defeat of Satan started in the garden with the very first mention of the gospel.

Genesis chapter 3, verse 15.

God foretold Satan's destruction in the garden.

We see it talked about all throughout the Old Testament and in the New Testament.

And ultimately the victory was at the cross.

Jesus says it is finished.

He conquers death through the resurrection.

And, and ultimately we know that Satan is going to be defeated and he is defeated, but there will be a final demise.

And, and we'll talk all about what scripture has to say about that next week.

And so if you're interested in that, come back.

If you're not interested that interested in that, please come back.

Anyway, we would love to have you here.

And, and I hope this has been a study that has been helpful for you.

Most of the things that I'm saying are, are, are common things that we talk about within churches, but I don't think that we talk about it enough.

I think we need to know who our enemy is and know how temptation happens and that temptation is not a sin.

If temptation was a sin, then we could not believe that Jesus was sinless.

The Bible actually says in Hebrews chapter four, he was tempted in all points, like we are yet without sin.

So I think that so many times we get to a place in our life where it's not the temptation that destroys us, it's how we deal with the temptation that gets us to a place of that brokenness.

And, and as the Bible says in the book of James, a death and destruction.

So we'll come back next week and we'll look at his demise.

Some people have already been asking me like what's, what's next?

What's, what's coming after Satan?

We're going to talk about a few different topics.

One of the topics that we're going to address, I think it'll only be a one week study.

It'll be basically the question of why did God do blank.

Okay.

Why does God allow, you know, bad things to happen to good people?

Why didn't God take away this problem?

Why didn't God, you know, give Moses the ability to speak, why did he allow Aaron to come in?

You know, why didn't God take the thorn away from, from, from Paul?

You know, why did Jesus allow this?

And why did he have a, a disciple that betrayed him?

We're going to talk about that and I can tell you, basically, it's going to be just study on what is God's will.

Okay.

How do we know and accept and believe in God's will?

And so, so just kind of weighing your appetites for the future.

Okay?

Thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast.

I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for you.

If you would like to find out more information about our church or this sermon, you can find us at middletownbaptistchurch.org or find us on Facebook or YouTube.

You can also email me directly at Josh Massaro at middletownbaptistchurch.

Com.

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Thank you so much.

God bless.

Have a wonderful day.