Dr. Charles Stanley: When is
the last time you found yourself feeling very vulnerable? In fact, the temptation was so
strong that you just think, "I can't handle this." And you found yourself very,
very puzzled maybe because of why you're being tempted. Or, you found yourself thinking
this is the same old temptation I've faced over and over and
over again. Or, you might say, "Well, this
was so alluring, so enticing, so inviting, how could I possibly
resist this?" That's the devil's line. That's the way he talks. So, I would ask you this
question, when's the last time you found yourself facing
something that you really had to struggle with, turn away from,
turning away from? Or saying no to? You felt great pressure, you
wanted to walk away, you debated about whether you could or not,
or should or not. Or, you know, you should. But whether you would or not. And, maybe, finally, you walked
away, but maybe finally you thought, "Well, God
understands." And have I ever heard this, God
understands, and you yielded to whatever that temptation was. So, we can think all kind of
things, but the truth is this, if you're alive, you're going to
get tempted. And we're living in a day when
it's everywhere. Whether you hear it on the radio
or the television or see it on the television or signs or in
stores, whatever it might be, we're living in a sensual age
and temptation is everywhere. And, people respond in several
different ways. They just yield or they fight
against it and survive, or they fight against it and still yield
and then, they have an excuse that they've used with God
before. "Now, Lord, you know I--this is
not fair. Everybody doesn't feel what I
feel," on and on and on we go. The truth is, that was the
beginning of sin in the world, the temptation of Adam and Eve. It hadn't changed. I mean, when Satan got through
telling Eve how fantastic it was going to be to have a bite
of this fruit, this, it's the same story. It's just different elements
involved. And so, when you find yourself
in that position, what do you think? Do you stop to think, where is
this coming from? Is this in my heart? Where is this coming from? I can tell you, it is a satanic
attack. The devil knows exactly when you
and I are the weakest. He knows at what point and he
knows exactly what it takes to get our attention and to make us
think, "I've just got to have that. Got to have one of those. Forget the price, I'm going to
have one of those." Satan has a whole line of
excuses to persuade us of what we deserve and nobody's perfect
and God loves us, and He'll forgive us, and on and on and on
he goes to set us up, to position ourselves to miss out
on God's best blessings in our life. So, I want to talk about facing
a satanic attack. And, if you'll turn to Ephesians
for a moment, and the first three chapters of Ephesians are
three of the most beautiful, encouraging chapters in the
Bible because it talks about a believer's wealth. What we have as a result of
knowing Christ as our Savior. And then, beginning in the
fourth chapter and the fifth, here is our walk. This is the way we should walk,
following the Lord, Jesus Christ. Then, we come to the last
chapter and we see there's a battlefield. And that is a battlefield with
Satan. God is so good to us, He walks
with us and yet, there are times when we are tempted and tried. And so, I want us to look, if
you will, at the tenth verse and as he concludes this epistle,
listen to what he says, "Finally, be strong in the Lord
and in the strength of His might." He didn't say be strong in
yourself, he said, "Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of
His might. Put on the full armor of God, so
that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the
devil. For our struggle is not against
flesh and blood, but against the rulers. Against the powers, against the
world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of
wickedness in the heavenly places." All of us are going to face
temptation. Now, when you think about it, I
would just ask you this question, think about what is
the strongest temptation you face in your life today? I don't mean just this
particular day, but in your daily life today? What's the strongest temptation? Why do you think it's--why do
you think the devil has used that to tempt you? To turn you away from God? To walk in a different path? To ignore God's warnings? To ignore His blessings? His awesome blessings in your
life? But, somehow, you find yourself
being tempted and getting in a position where the blessings God
wants to give you, He can no longer give you. Paul says, we're to stand firm
against the schemes of the devil. He certainly has schemes. So, the first thing I want to do
is define what is a satanic attack? A satanic attack is a
deliberate, willful assault by Satan upon an individual with
the purpose of doing them harm either in their spirit, soul, or
body, or all three. Look at that, a deliberate,
willful assault by Satan upon an individual with the purpose of
doing them harm either in their spirit, soul, or body, or all
three. And, when is that? Anytime, anywhere. Satan knows exactly when you and
I are the weakest. He knows exactly what it takes
to trip us up. He may know who is the best to
trip us up or what it is we are allured by. What does it take to trip us up? Every single believer is faced
with temptation. And, if you'll think about
today, our whole society is geared toward tempting us for
something. You turn on the radio, you hear
it, we ought to buy this. You watch the television, you
ought to buy this and see this, or have that or have him or have
her. And you can look anywhere you
want to look, there is the temptation to have, oftentimes,
what we do not need, what we should not have,
and the result of temptation is division and destruction. And so, if I should ask you,
what's Satan's objective in tempting you? You're a fine Christian person,
you love God. What's his objective? First of all, to draw us away
from God to himself. Satan wants to draw us away from
God. So, he knows exactly what it
takes to get our mind off of God, off of spiritual things,
onto material things or on to sensual things. He knows exactly what it takes. What does it take? What's his objective? To draw us away from God to
himself and to thwart God's purpose in our life. In other words, if the devil can
change, thwart God's purpose in your life, he's got you where he
wants you because, remember this, God has a will for your
life, He has a plan for your life. He's got the best. And so, Satan is not going to
say, "Well, I want to destroy you." No, he just wants to move your
attention from God, spiritual things to earthly things,
material things, sensual things, and then to deny God the worship
and glory due to Him. That is, the devil doesn't want
you worshiping God. So, listen, he's given us as a
whole plate full of stuff to get our attention away from God
because that's his purpose. And then, to destroy us. Satan's ultimate goal for
temptation is destruction. Destroy our relationship to God,
destroy our interest in Him, destroy our faith in Him,
destroy our desire to pray, destroy our sense of eternal
security, destroy, destroy, destroy, destroy, destroy. That's his goal. And yet, we know that, and isn't
it interesting that in spite of what we know, how many sermons
have you heard in your life? You can't even count them. And, I certainly hope you're
going to hear a lot more. But the issue is, what are you
going to do about the truth that you hear? Satan knows about the truth that
you're listening to. And here's what he does, he
shows up to distract you from hearing the truth, so you'll
keep moving in a direction that'll take you away from God. All of us face some kind of
temptation in life. I didn't say every single day,
but listen, everybody has something that they can be
tempted by. It may be something that you
keep having victory over, time after time after time, or you
may feel defeated time after time. But Satan's goal is to get you
away from God. So, he'll tell you why you don't
have time to read the Bible. He'll say, first of all, you've
got to be somewhere at a certain time. Secondly, he says,
you don't need to read, you don't even understand it. You don't understand what--
why read something, what about Deuteronomy and Leviticus and
Second Kings and why do you want to read the Bible? Anything he can do to get your
mind off of spiritual things is what he'll do. And, he wants to divide
relationships. Anything to divide families,
anything to bring divorce, any kind of sexual sins, anything
that'll take your mind off God. That is, you ought to buy this,
ought to buy that. Don't ask God about it, you
worked hard, you worked forty hours or fifty and sixty hours a
week. You've been working all these
years, you deserve it. So, think about it. You're trying to reach your
goals in life and he's working against you. You're trying to live a pure
life; he's working against you. You're trying to save your
money, he's telling you you ought to buy this. Satan is your enemy. Now, his strategy can be found
in three words, just three words. I mean, as complex as we may
think the devil is, strategy is three words. The first one is this, his first
step is to deceive us, that is to lie to us. If you believe a lie, you've
taken the first step toward absolute defeat and siding up
with the devil. And, often times when people
want to sin against God, they'll take the truth of God and try to
twist it all around and, watch this, I can hear this many
times, "But you don't know about my situation." Well, God knows about your
situation. "Well, you don't know how long
I've suffered." Well, God knows how long you've
suffered. "Well, you don't know how long
I've been in need." You can come up with all kind of
excuses, remember this, God's heard them all. And they didn't come from God,
they came from the devil. But the issue is this, God has
the best life for every single one of us and the devil has his
best to do what? To deceive us and to divide us. You think about how many
churches get divided over somebody disagreeing with this,
that, and the other. Nations are divided, churches
divided, families divided, friends divided, divided,
divided, divided, separate, separate, separate because then
you've got chaos. No love, criticism. They say things they would say
one day, they wouldn't say the next. Satan is a divider, he's a
deceiver. He is a destroyer. That's his purpose, to destroy
our testimony, to destroy our life physically, to destroy our
finances, destroy our marriage, destroy our families, destroy,
destroy, destroy. So, deceive, divide, destroy,
that's all he needs. Deceive, divide, destroy. The next time you feel tempted,
ask yourself the question: Is Satan deceiving me? Am I feel--am I being divided
from what I ought to be doing? And am I headed toward
destruction? If a child of God, if you are a
believer, will stop when you are tempted and ask yourself those
questions, am I being deceived? Number one question. Is my mind being divided? Am I headed toward some
destruction? Ask yourself the question. So, we need to be alert and
watchful. And, as a child of God, none of
us can boast of being so strong that we'll never be tempted. When somebody says, "Well, I may
be tempted about some things, but not that." Satan just puts a check by that
one. None of us, not any of us can
say, "I will never be tempted by this, that, or the other." We think we aren't. We would almost swear we
wouldn't be, and we can give you a lot of reasons we wouldn't be,
but the devil wants a sense of self-confidence that's based on
mush, no foundation, but based on mushy attitudes about what
you will or will not do. And, when I think of this great
passage of Scripture in First Corinthians ten, thirteen,
listen to what Paul says, everybody ought to know this
one, "No temptation." Listen to that, "No temptation
has taken you," or tempted you or tried you, "but such is
common to man." Listen, "common to man." And that being the case, "God is
faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted more than you are
able to bear but will with the temptation also make a way of
escape that you can bear it." We have a promise from God, I do
not have to do that. I may want to do it, I may want
it more than anything else, but I don't have to. If I don't have to, then I'll
make the choice, either I will or I will not. And, when I think about the
condition our nation is in, and the things that tempt people,
and the people who are being destroyed, being destroyed,
self-destruction as a result of yielding to temptation. Deceive, divide, destroy. So, whether it's a nation,
whether it's a church, whether it's a family, Satan's busy. So, when you feel tempted, what
do you do? Do you, watch this carefully, is
your first response a sudden desire to find a real good
sounding excuse? Or, when you're tempted, did you
know it's--you say, "This is of the devil, it's not who I am,
doesn't belong in my life. I choose to reject this." We have a choice. Now, a person who's an
unbeliever, they don't that kind of choice, I'll tell you why. Because they have a fallen
nature. And so, when Satan comes on with
a very, very strong, overpowering event in their life
or presentation of something they want, they already have
three strikes against them. It's the way they've been
living. So, it's sort of easy to just
slip into what you've been doing. When you're a child of God,
you trusted Him as your Savior. You begin on a platform of
strength, you have the Holy Spirit within you to, first of
all, identify what you're facing as a sin, that it doesn't fit
your life, it isn't of God, and it's destructive. It cannot bring you anything
that's good. You have the Holy Spirit. The person who's not a believer
doesn't have that. And the Word of God is our
greatest defense against the devil because we don't have to
choose sin. We have the Holy Spirit living
within us, He promises that. You have the Holy Spirit. What does He do? He makes you aware of the
temptation, He reminds you maybe it's with some Scripture or
something He's already done in your life, that God will give
you victory. He reminds you, you do not have
to yield to this. It is a choice you make. And, we can blame it on other
people, "Well, my mother, my father, my sister, my brother,
my friend, my friends, this, that, and the other." That's not the issue. If you want to keep living in
sin, all you have to do is close this Book and don't open it up,
just, you can open it up once a week, it's not going to keep you
from sinning. God has given us, watch this,
He's given us His written Word and He's given us the Holy
Spirit to live inside of us in order to interpret that Word for
us, to remind us that the wages of sin is death. And so, we all have to face
temptations, only you know how you handle them. Somebody says, "Well, you know,
I think God understands." That is not our excuse for or
our explanation for living in sin because God wants the best
for us. And the Christian experience
does not mean that you'll never sin against God. All of us at some point at times
in our life do things or say things or see things or whatever
it might be, we know are not of God, what do you do? In other words, you just give up
and say, "Well, see, I tried to live a Christian life, I can't,
so forget it." No, the Apostle Paul never
claimed perfection. The only person who can claim
that's Jesus. But a true believer, when you
are tempted, you turn to God. "Lord, here's what I'm facing, I
don't want this in my life. I feel so, help me, Jesus, help
me, help me, help me, Jesus." Whatever it takes. You say, "Well, then suppose I
yield anyway?" You ask God to forgive you, to
strengthen you to make you aware of that in your life that that's
an area of weakness. And, if I should ask you, how
many of you know at least one area of weakness in your life? Don't raise your hand, no,
please don't. But how many of you know at
least one area of weakness in your life? We all do. Anybody who says they don't, is
not telling the truth. You know when, for example, if
it's gossip, if it's lust, if it's overeating, if it's the way
you spend your money, or if it's your lack of faithfulness in one
another, whatever it might be. And, besides that, remember
this, God knows it. In other words, you never have
to come to Him and say, "God, by the way, let me remind You of
something." No, He knows our areas of
weakness. I think about how many families
are destroyed by somebody falling into temptation, whether
it's a teenager or whether it's the parents. I think about people who go to
jail because they fell in the temptation of stealing. They could justify it, other
people have it, they don't have it, and therefore, they'll just
take what they want. You can go right down the list
of every sin in the Bible, we could give an excuse for it, but
it's not acceptable to God. Now, here's what I want you to
see, you do not have to. Somebody says, "But I just
couldn't help myself." You have God who will help you
through anything you face. You say, "Well, suppose I sin,
then what?" Here's what He says, "If we
confess our sins." That is, we agree with God about
the nature of our sins, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful
and just," to forgive me for my sins. Why? Because Jesus Christ is my
Savior. I've yielded to Him as the Lord
of my life and this is a point of failure and I'm asking You,
God, to forgive me, not on the basis that I deserve it, but on
the basis that Jesus' shed blood atoned for my sin and I have
another chance. God wipes away our guilt. Now, you say, "Well, I've been
to God about the same thing over and over and over again." Well, God knows whether you
really and truly are committed to Him or not. And some sin, watch this, some
sins leave scars that you can't erase. Remember this statement, the
scars of sin can last you a lifetime. Only the blood of Jesus can
atone for them. But you know what? Scar's still there. And we have to thank God for His
awesome power to enable us to overcome them. So, I'm simply saying to you,
whatever the weakness is in your life, you need to bring it to
God. Will He help you through it? Yes. So, I would just ask you to
consider in your own life, "What effect has temptation had on my
life? Why have I reasoned that I could
excuse myself? Why have I told God over and
over again that I'm different? I grew up in a bad situation, I
grew up with parents who didn't teach me. I grew up with alcoholic
parents. I grew up with parents who'd
married three or four times. I did this, I did that, I did
that other," God understands. Listen carefully, God
understands, but God doesn't excuse sin. He's willing to deal with it,
He's willing to forgive, He's willing to give you the strength
that you need. But you have to first come clean
with Him. "Lord, here I am and I'm weak
in this area, I desperately need You to do something for me
in my life in this area, in Jesus's name." Will He answer your prayer? Yes, He will. You say, "Well, are we supposed
to be perfect?" No, no, that's why He says, "If
we confess our sins," agree with Him about them, "He's faithful
and just to forgive us and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness." And, some sins, we probably have
all confessed some things over and over and over again. But we have the Holy Spirit
living within us to enable us to be strong enough to say "no." And the more times you say "no,"
the stronger you become. You always have God enabling
you, warning you, and strengthening you to be obedient
to God. Amen? Father, we thank You for Your
love for us. We thank you that in the midst
of this dark generation which we are living that there is an
awesome light that's eternal, that glows within our hearts,
that makes it possible for us to live godly and to walk clearly,
plainly, lovingly before You day by day. I pray, Lord, this morning that
somebody seated here who is going through some terrible
temptation or maybe is trapped by it right now, that You'll
give them this grace, God, the grace to remember they can be
freed and the grace to remember that You love them in spite of
all of it, and the grace to remember that Your power
is greater than the temptation they face. We love You, we praise You, we
thank You, we are trusting You daily to be our Guide,
our Savior, our Lord, and Master of our life. Show us how to live above sin,
Lord, in every way, in Jesus's name, amen.
