Dealing with Temptation

the following message is made available by truth for life for more information visit us online at truthfortheworld.org spirit of the Living God fall afresh on us spirit of the Living God fall afresh on us by your word breakers by your spirit molders and reshape us from your throne fellows but in this hour we pray fall afresh on us in Jesus name Amen please be seated now we're turning this morning in Scripture to the letter of James James chapter 1 and we're going to read from verse 12 to worse 19 a verse 12 to verse 19 a and as you're turning there and since this is the last day of the feast and the only speaker left after this is Alistair let me be the mouthpiece of all of us to say to to Dan first of all thank you for graciously disciplining us and getting us all in order in these days and I think on your behalf I want to charge Alastair as his older brother to thank the congregation here at Parkside who have done so much to make these few days such a blessing [Applause] well now James chapter 1 verse 12 blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial but when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life which God has promised to those who love him let no one say when he is tempted I'm being tempted by God for God cannot be tempted with evil and he himself tends no one but each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death do not be deceived my beloved brothers every good gift and every perfect gift is from above coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures then it seems to me there's a bad break here in many of our translations and that verse 19 a belongs to the previous verses know this so the antecedent of this is the previous verses and it's not a lead-in to what follows that doesn't make much sense since what follows is an excitation know this my beloved brothers well there has been a kind of order and structure to these three messages but I've been trying to bring for us together as we sit under God's Word and in a sense as some of you may have noticed they have been they have been structured in terms of the way in which we engage in ministry on a a weekly basis the way we engage in ministry on our regular basis and now the way in which we engage in ministry on a daily basis but they also follow the flow of the Lord's Prayer the approach to God that by the Spirit through the blood of Christ we are given access to the Father in worship and then we are encouraged to pray for our daily bread and presumably the early fathers who applied that to the Lord's Supper and to the Eucharistic meal at least extended that prayer from the ordinary daily bread to that heavenly bread that we receive at the table and then our Lord Jesus teaches us daily to pray lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one and we have added so that yours may be the kingdom and the power and the glory and so we're turning today obviously from the choice of this passage to the subject of temptation I don't know if we still sing what a friend we have in Jesus all our griefs and pains to bear I don't see any nods but somebody out there sings what a friend we have in Jesus and the hem goes on to say those have we trials and temptations is there trouble anywhere we should never be discouraged take it to the Lord in prayer amen set that's not what James says here amen later on James will tell us to take it to the Lord in prayer but prayer is not the only instrument God has given to his people to defend them against temptation to deliver them in the midst of it and to protect them in the fight and it's actually I think in our subculture very important for us to recognize this and to teach it because we do often hear people say when they speak about prayer the Lord speaks to me in prayer and we need to find gentle ways of saying to them the Lord does not speak to you in prayer you speak to the Lord in prayer he speaks to you through his word it may be that that word will come to you in prayer but do not confuse the imaginations of your mind with the revelation of God from heaven in the world and it's almost as though subliminally that the Scriptures do much more than presumably the human authors of them ever intended it's very striking to me that when James turns here to the subject of trials and temptations he bookends his letter by yes we are to take it to the Lord in prayer but prayer is not the only instrument we need to speak to or about our temptations but we also need to listen to him about our temptations and what James is doing here is giving instruction to these scattered Christians and perhaps he was at one time their pastor he has a love for them a care for them and despite the fact that so many people love this letter because it's such a practical letter it's an enormously theological and doctrinal letter which is why it's such a practical letter and he emphasizes this very important principle both in the earlier verses when he's speaking about trials and now in these words as he's speaking about temptations but there are certain things we need to know in connection with our trials he says there is something you need to know in order to count it all joy when you meet trials of various kinds that's not a natural instinct it's not even a natural instinct for the Christian believer it is an exercise of faith grasping the knowledge that God's Word has given to us that enables us to count it joy he's not saying trials or joy he's saying your to current trials joy because you know what God is doing through them it comes to this as he speaks about it and tells us that the man who remains steadfast under trial will receive the crown of life which God has promised to those who love him so he's encouraging us to no unrest in the promises of God and to interpret our trials and our afflictions through the illumination of the Word of God to put on scripturally prescribed spectacles that we will see afflictions purpose and that we'll be able to counted joy and that's one but not the only reason it seems to me that when we come to verse 19 a we should think of James referring backwards now rather than forwards because he wants to say when we face temptation there are certain things we need to know in order that notice the language in verse 16 in order that we will not be deceived we need knowledge knowledge that empowers us lest we be deceived moved in times of temptation and what it seems to me that James was doing here two things really in this connection is first of all helping us to understand the pattern of temptation and then secondly helping us to understand the defenses that the gospel gives us against temptation and he does this very clearly this in some ways this is the structurally the clearest teaching in the whole of the Bible of a propositional kind to teach us how it is that temptation works there is a pattern to it we may not always notice that pattern because temptation as the confession of faith of my church indicates can come suddenly to surprises but what James is doing is building into our thinking so that it may then be built into our instincts to do something very important and that in a sense is to slow down theologically what may happen to as instantaneously so that we may see what it is that is actually happening you know nowadays with the great technology you watch you watch some sport on television and the the camera work the technology is so amazing you know that they the expert comes on and as the event is slowed down in slow motion you know you watch from a farm there's this basketball fellow jumping up in the air or there say a great golfer playing a shot or tennis player or a soccer player or on an American football player and the whole thing is slowed down and you then begin to see what was actually happening it can fill you with awe to see what it is that is actually happening and the analyst says to those of us who are mere amateurs and wish that the other mere amateurs would shut up and stop telling us what's happening is there's no watch what it is that is what's actually happening here now all of those modern techniques all of those modern techniques including being in space incidentally there are angels in space long before there are human astronauts in space all of this all of this finds a kind of preamble in the way in which the word the technology of the word enables us to build up gospel defense mechanisms that become instinctive in us to guard us in times of temptation and to be able to and to be able to detect the presence of the evil one when he's wearing an invisible shield and to have this built-in instinct which eventually as John Newton says and one of his wonderful letters in a sense becomes such a word created instinct dinners that we react intuitively to situations just the way Ruth plays on the keyboard so here is the pattern it actually happens to be full of words ending in IO n I don't believe in isms I believe in ions and there are five of them and it always happens this way it always happens this week it may take place in an instant but always as these five elements in it and the first that James underlines for us is attraction he wants to preface all this by saying don't please do not misunderstand what I'm about to see God does not entice anybody to sin period God does not entice anyone to sin so if you wonder what Jesus was saying when he taught his disciples to pray lead us not into temptation he was talking about in Matthew chapter 6 what had happened to him in Matthew chapter 4 when he was driven out by the leadership of the Holy Spirit to be tempted by the devil there is a concurrence of activity in our Christian life all of the time the sovereign activity of God the malicious activity of Satan and the personal responsibility of the believer and we must never confuse these three dimensions of our lives and this is what James is saying let's let's just clear the ground here and make sure none of us says God enticed me to sin God does not entice the sin God may lead us into temptation God may expose us to temptation for all kinds of reasons some of which we may never discover in this life but he is not the enticer because says James it is impossible but God would tempt us so how are we tempted first of all we are tempted by attraction each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire there is no temptation even to that which is odious to us without an attraction and what is so important at that point is characteristically characteristically attraction comes to the Christian believer by an appeal through one of the senses and frequently by a confusion of two of the senses so that we interpret reality in terms largely of what we see and what we feel and not largely in terms of what God's Word says and the only way for us to understand this is to catch a sense of the fact that the Christian believer needs to learn to see everything through his our part ears and this is true from the very beginning of the Scriptures isn't it and this is in a way that says this is James summarizing the three classic illustrations of temptation in the Old Testament Scriptures temptation of Eve in the Garden of Eden temptation of athan in the book of Joshua temptation of King David in second Samuel they all have identical patterns and they all begin by this satanic work of coming to individuals and enticing them to think about reality in terms of what they see rather than in terms of how God interprets the reality that they see and are all kinds of little nuances in Genesis chapter 3 that indicate this is what is actually happening to Eve in the sense that the serpent is saying you can rely on your sight in order to interpret reality and so she saw and they are in the disaster AI it can saw and they're in the disaster in Jerusalem when David should have been out where Uriah the Hittite was leading his men into battle he saw and in each case the attraction are always because they failed to interpret the reality in terms of what God said about it what God said about the tree in the Garden of Eden was not it's ugly fruit and so you'll know not to eat it indeed it seems to me that one of the things Genesis two and three emphasizes is there's absolutely no difference between this tree and a Briella tree the very same language is used to describe the tree of the knowledge of good and evil as is used to describe all the other trees they're all beautiful to look at the fruit of all of them looks delicious to eat you see to those he had created pure and innocent it would it would have been no it would have been no Avenue of development if as Eve had been drawn along by this slithering serpent to stand in front of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and there was something about that tree that made her shrivel up and say I'm not going to touch not what God was doing and that was saying to our first parents I love you look what I've given to you you can of all of this but show me that you love me just because I am God and you are not God and I'm your gracious loving generous heavenly father show me you love me for my own sake in return by doing what I say just because I say it otherwise it would have been no real temptation but you see the whole way in which the tree is described in Genesis chapter 3 years not in terms of what God said about it but about what it looked like and where it stood geographically attraction and the Christian because the Christian is a sinner the Christian always needs to keep a guard on his or her senses remember how John says about the Lord Jesus how they believed in him and John says he didn't trust any of them he didn't end trust himself to any of them there is a there is a kind of right how many utak of suspicion for Christian believers about everything now it can become cynicism but Satan is able to tempt us through anything we see absolutely anything we see number how many McShane says and writes in his diary I think I have discovered that the seeds of every knowing sooner in my heart and we need to be conscious of the way in which attraction is usually the first step and being drawn into temptation and with that secondly goes deception this is why there is this constant drumbeat throughout scripture comes in the Old Testament it comes in Jesus teaching to the apostles it comes and the Apostles teaching to the believers it comes here James begins with these words and verse 16 do not be deceived because when anyone is tempted he says they are lured and enticed by his own desire of an elderly friend who has moved into a care home and his son was telling me that his father had said to my think got some fishing rods and probably some flies left you can do anything you want with them so his son rummaged around I think he found 25 fishing rods and 10,000 flies and Satan has 10,000 flies to entices I'm not a fisherman my son one of my sons went on a medical expedition once to the Middle East and he said the food was horrible but one day they said would you like fish he was very excited so these men I won't tell you exactly where he was these men to come down to the river pulled out a stick of dynamite with it threw it into the water and that's the kind of fishing I would do but you watch you watch fisherman deceivers every one of them no honest man has ever caught a fish in or ever you think you think Satan doesn't know his flies and he comes and he he eludes us and in all kinds of subtle ways that we that we really don't expect and his goal is to deceive us his goal is to blur our vision and so you have Buford men and perhaps women sitting in front of you that their head in their hands and the thing I do not know what I was thinking about it and that's the problem isn't it if I counted the phrases my wife has used in sanctifying me I think at the top of the list would be Sinkler you're not thinking and this is why the Ministry of the word is so important not just because we store up information because it actually does something to the way in which we think it changes our thought patterns it informs our thought patterns it creates new instincts in us it enables us to see things other people are not able to see because they do not have word formed minds and we need to find the most gracious ways of helping our people to understand that it's through the mind that the word does its work and it's the word that does its work and this is why we engage in preaching and engage in preaching at such lengths yes we are thankful for the presence of Jesus Christ a bringing the whole reality to life through his preaching of his word but it's not just storing information into people's minds is it we are not we are not simply teachers teaching the text and being good teachers we are preachers loving the people and preaching word to them in such a way that through the mind reaches the affections and the instincts and the emotions and the Volition's and reshapes us and that's an altogether different view of the Ministry of the word from views that are widespread here's what God's Word tells you to do now find a book somewhere that will tell you to do it and if you don't let me give you the points that you need and what's missing there you do the work and that's the problem but when the gospel is preached and the power of the Holy Spirit the word does the work remember how Paul puts that the word was at work the word in the axial fossils Luke says groom what a strange expression the word grew what does he mean it just became bigger and bigger and bigger in its impact on people's lives and it's lists that undeceived CS Lewis has an essay with somewhere Louis's like Spungen you can say almost anything Lewis said and you know there very few Lewis experts organic until you know it over said that he has an acid he has an essay entitled under Sections that title alone has been a great help to me a when I was asked to my horror when I was being examined as a candidate for the ministry if we turn you down what will you do and I fully said the thought has never crossed my mind and then I said you know I think I think I'd probably do one of two things I would be an investigative journalist or a detective and I guess that is a very close connection in the instincts of a preacher because this is what you're doing all of the time you are constantly engaged in a ministry of under ception because by nature we're all deceived so there is first of all attraction there is secondly deception the danger of I gate without ear gate I would really apologize for this I get without ear gate allows sin to dominate you held it here from our Staubach third preoccupation and you see what is happening here he says look at this each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire and the enticement what does it do is drawing you in it's like a it's like put it bringing a quarter near enough your eye and you can't see anything else and it enters in and it fills the mind and the great issue with the mind is the instrument that needs to be used in order to help the mind is the mind that needs to be helped and once this preoccupation develops and often it's not just a preoccupation of the mind it's a preoccupation of the affections that creates the preoccupation of the mind when the affections are captured in this way then there is a real spiritual crisis for us because we don't the resources on our own mind to be delivered from the fascination that has been created through our minds and is now embedded in our affections think of it in what is alas one of the most obvious illustrations here is here is the man sitting in front of you the woman sitting in front of you and they've they have had what people and euphemistically call an affair now what's the what is the big question what will give you hope in this situation has the affection being broken has what seemed to you so attractive do you now see it in its true light do you see the destruction it causes those of you who know the the Westminster Confession of the London or Philadelphia confessions you remember how the divine speak about the nature of repentance produces a loathing of the sin of which we repent loathing is not a cerebral word that's a gut word it's a word about the affections and until that begins to happen until that begins to happen there is very little hope of deliverance and salvation there is very little hope of advance so long as that fascination remains there you know bunions words I think about them so often I've actually got them written in my Bible sin rather than relax out of action be will pray to stay though but a while with thee one night one hour one moment will apply embraces me and by bosom lest I die time to repent effort I will allow and help if to repent thou knowest not how but if you give it entrance at the door it will come and may go out normal so there's attraction and there's deception and there's preoccupation and then there's conception and this is James own language and it is a real clue I think to to the movie that's playing at the back of his mind don't you think then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin and then you think now I see where James this this pattern did not fall down directly from heaven into the mind of James James this is this is the outline of James Sam and on second Samuel 11 or 12 wasn't it this is exactly what happens to King David that is exactly the same demonic strategy attraction deception preoccupation he can't get the woman out of his mind and then there is literally conception you know when we are not tempted our sinfulness lies dormant and sometimes our sinfulness is aroused but we have no opportunity but when opportunity meets desire conception takes place and that's what happened to David it's exactly fascinatingly the exact same story in genesis chapter 3 it's exactly the same story a AI with Aten and it's exactly the same result death in Genesis 3 death in Joshua death in the life of David that's where it always leads it leads through attraction deception preoccupation conception and then final subjection we come into bondage to that sin David sees with his eyes not with his ears it doesn't slow the action down we know we are what the scholars call the on the omniscient author of the omniscient reader we know this man should be out at the front leading his troops it's the spring when Kings lead their people into battle he's made the first mistake of deserting his duties it is a tragedy in the modern church that Duty has become a dirty word a tragedy because God has given us duties to preserve us those Ten Commandments among other things are there to preserve us they're doing for us because we are little children what we do to our little children we say to them love me and trust me and then don't stick that thing into that socket in the wall and don't play around with these things and don't watch these things and don't take these things it's the easiest way to be clear to tell us specifically if you've sinful tendencies then don't that's what God was saying to Adam and Eve even when they were innocent there is something you're not to do it's your duty it's not naked duty its Duty set within the lavishness of grace and the problem is you see when people overthrow duty the real problem is they know absolutely nothing about grace and they need to be told that and very directly they need to be told that you reject duty and it's God's grace you're rejecting how do I know that because the grace of God has appeared to teach us to deny ungodliness and you say that in some context and the hands go up and say that's legalism no that's grace your problem my friend is it's grace you don't understand and this is a word of grace to us as it takes us through this very vivid and you see what James is doing he is doing isn't he exactly what we said at the beginning there all this can happen in a flash so no slow everything down you know professor Murray John Murray some of you know his name great reformed theologian as a Scotsman he didn't really like taking questions in class sometimes students when I was a student if you raised your hand in class we knew you were visiting American and we loved having you but we knew who you are and here is this great theologian saying I'll think about that I have a friend who asked him such a question in class and a couple of days later professor Murray gave him a slip of paper with the answer on it what was he doing he was slowing the whole thing down slowing the whole thing down you know people tell you to slow your life down but we need to learn to slow everything down we need to land something of that Hanlin utak of suspicion of the Lord Jesus we need to be able to take a step back and see what is really happening here what's the pattern the thing itself may not immediately disclose the pattern in Satan as a master of less he he can appear as an angel of light I mean this happens through people doesn't it they may appear as angels of light but we are not ignorant of his devices his strategies he only has so many strategies he's not omnipotent he's not omniscient he's not omnipresent he is only so many strategies and there is such a repetition of this pattern in the story of Scripture that was surely bound to conclude that this is truly one of his patterns well we must move on because James doesn't leave us there with his analysis he gives us in many ways indications of how we find divine protection against temptation unfortunately for me there are three of these so I think I just need to give you the headings the first as this learn ourselves and teach our people to be familiar with the temptation cycle you know you see the analysts doing vision when everything is in slow motion and then the more you watch the more you're able to see that pattern for yourself you grow in this so be familiar with the temptation cycle I was thinking about this my son and I one of our sons is here with us and we were talking about this and it struck me last night how possible this might be for for some of us here at the conference you remember how Jesus speaks about temptation in the parable of the sower and the soils and he speaks about the way in which the word can be choked by among other things what he calls the desire for other things or what other things any other things come to a conference like this you see Parkside and the little desire for other things you know you can't go from where you are overnight to Parkside but you'd really like to go there and so what Satan has begun to do at a minister's conference wasn't an owl who said that's just a release can be really dangerous places is that we began to look around without without slowing the action down and thinking say what what is happening here I need to be sure every day I give no place to the devil and here in this rarefied sanctified atmosphere he's been he's been creeping along and he says see that tree would you like a bite of that tree and you go back home and the whole thing was organized so he could go back home analyzed and encouraged but you actually go back home thinking I wish I were somewhere else and you know others are we're human beings that there's a sociology of pastors conferences just as a sociology of synod's and General Assemblies and you you could be a man from the moon and you know who the big hitters are with the big churches you know it's purely sociological but it looks spiritual you know the other ones that everybody listens to and you know your jaw nor body and the desire for other things just any other things but not this thing that God has given to me so subtle isn't it can happen in a moment and we're not guarded we've lost the hand you took up suspicions we're not like Jesus saying oh who are these people what's the real truth about these people so we need to in this way be familiar with the temptation cycle second thing is this I was still trying to kind of illustrate this but you know one of the things about expounding Scripture is that we get these exhortations and then we go to the book the book rooms fantastic absolutely fantastic and seeing lots of things in these messages I hope you will not misunderstand but you need to go to a seminar or you need to get the book to read it and what we do is we listen to the exhortation and then we pick our noses up from the scriptures and we need to go to man to find out how to do it now look at what James does here he doesn't announce that you know there's no Red Sea cover here on the book saying this is the latest greatest praise about handling temptation but what he does say is this without even saying I'm showing you how to be protected against temptation a by showing you the temptation cycle be familiar with it and then he says and you can be protected against temptation by becoming convinced of the unchanging goodness of God and that's why he goes on to say I mean it looks as though there's no connection whatsoever don't be deceived my beloved brothers every good and perfect gift is from above coming down from the Father of lives with whom there is no variation or shadow jutsu change his guests - you are good that was the problem in Eden that was the problem in Aitkin that was the problem in Jerusalem there must be something better for me and you see what happens to Eve the whole focus in my own view of what happens to Eve in the Garden of Eden and the early chapters of Genesis 3 is not merely that God's Word as being repudiated and denied it's God's character that's being repudiated and denied it's seeing our things II desire other things than what God wants for you and there's something very interesting here I confess you know I don't know how many times I've read Genesis but I only noticed this relatively maybe in the last year or two in that conversation that takes place between the serpent and Eve there's a very interesting linguistic phenomenon the divine name Yahweh revealed to Moses but used by Moses because he writes the Pentateuch after the Exodus so he uses the divine name Yahweh to say it's the Covenant deliverer who is also the covenant creator so in chapter 2 Yahweh appears named the Lord big letters in our modern versions everybody knows who he is you know in the conversation that takes place between the Eve and the serpent the serpent never refers to as Yahweh never refers to us Yahweh almost almost Moses that's not the good way to put it it's almost as though Moses is saying I'm not dogmatic about this song so as you see what's happening here the very way he speaks about God is intended to disguise his goodness his absolute goodness we need to be absolutely convinced that our god is good all of the time and he must be good all of the time because He gave His Son for us years ago I was at a conference attend desiring God and they had a concert and there was a choir I think it was called the choir of all nations and they were singing various things and they sang this song it was kind of antiphonal you probably know it I didn't and I don't but there was a refrain our god is good all of the time all of the time and the choir sing if you're X you need to know this I hear why you need to know this and there was a fellow as I remember in a kind of Hawaiian shirt it was kind of you know grooving around the stage like a solid presbyterian and so I have been deliberately seated here at this conference I now understand now that I'm under see I'm sitting beside John Piper and he turns to me so as you see that man there this is like the groovy man doesn't look anything like a presbyterian he says that man is one of my elders you know we know we Scots on a stubborn blot so I casually turned to them and I said do you ever hire out your elders to other congregations and then I made the mistake of telling that story in my own congregation but it fixed the song in my mind our God is good all of the time we know about his goodness on his word and my dear brothers that will take you a long way and being guarded and then he says there's a third thing you need to know to be protected you need to be aware of the significance of the new birth you see it's not just a matter of pushing back against sin the kind of naked ly denying ungodliness as we detect temptation it's what ted thomas charmers called the necessity of the explosive power of a new affection there's no point sanctification as not sweeping the house clean sanctification involves sweeping the house clean and then putting in the new function and you see that in Paul again again again again and again and that's what he's saying here so beautifully he says of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures there's a kind of little play here on the idea of the way in which temptation works it eventually conceives and gives birth to death but there is by the Holy Spirit an altogether different and more powerful conception takes place and it brings forth new life and the first fruits of the new creation of God born again with new affections and not only born again with new affections but born into his family so that there is as it were a double protection of the new instinct and it's explosive power as we put on Jesus Christ and the new identity as we come back to him and we say to him as we really began this way our Father in Heaven may your name be hallowed in my life and what if we have failed well there's a way back to God from the dark paths of sin there's a door that is open and you may go in a Calvary's cross is where you begin when you come as a sinner to Jesus our Heavenly Father we are so blessed to be together so protected by one another but even on mountains of Transfiguration temptations can take place we pray that you would protect us now and as we head down the hill we find ourselves faced with situations difficult to deal with in our own churches and perhaps find the serpent encouraging us to desire other things than what you have given to us persuade us by your word and Spirit we pray Lord that you are unerringly and unendingly good to us your children and your servants in Jesus name you this message was brought to you from truth for life where the learning is for living to learn more about truth for life with Alistair beg visit us online at truthfortheworld.org

Channel: Alistair Begg

Views: 22,037

Rating: 4.8959813 out of 5

Keywords: Temptation, Dealing with Temptation, Basics Conference, Pastors, Pastoral Ministry

Id: yo6F9Aavu6s

Length: 52min 56sec (3176 seconds)

Published: Wed May 24 2017