If you have your Bibles, you can turn
to James chapter 4, James chapter 4.
The title of the message is, The Devil
Made Me Do It.
The devil made me do it.
And I'll tell you up front, that's not
true.
The devil doesn't make you do anything.
He simply entices.
Just like a fish, you see the fishing
lure in the water.
That's how you catch a fish, it looks
enticing.
But I need to read the context from,
before I get into James chapter 4 verse
7.
I'm going to begin at verse 1.
We talked about James saying, Adulterers and adulteresses,
do you know that friendship with this world
is enmity with God?
Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of
the world makes himself an enemy of God.
Or do you think that the scripture says
in vain that the spirit who dwells in
us yearns jealously for God, but he gives
more grace.
Therefore he says, God resists the proud, but
gives grace to the humble.
And we talked about the possibility and the
reality of cheating on God.
We can cheat on God spiritually when we
give our heart to something else, worldly influences.
And that was last week's message.
But it's interesting, he says, God resists the
proud, but gives grace to the humble.
And one aspect of pride is loving the
world.
Having a deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from
one's own achievement or lifestyle.
That's also pride.
Look at what I've done, look at what
I've accomplished.
So God resists the proud.
So those of you who are proud, if
you're fighting against God, I'm sure not the
Wednesday night audience, right?
But this will apply Sunday morning, I'm sure.
A lot of prideful people there.
But just listen then, just listen to what
I'll tell them at some point.
But pride is taking pride in what we've
accomplished or what we've done.
And the sense of haughtiness and superiority really,
looking down on others.
And God actually resists that.
And people wonder, I've seen a lot of
prideful people, and they wonder, why isn't God
answering my prayers?
Why isn't, I feel like I'm fighting God.
You are fighting God.
God is resisting you, he's not allowing certain
blessings.
He's not allowing things to happen in your
place with peace and tranquility, because you're resisting
God.
But he gives grace to the humble.
So when we humble ourselves, and don't think
like this, and don't pursue the things of
the world, the grace of God floods in.
If you've known the difference, when you're prideful,
and you fight against God, and when you're
humble, it just seems that God is filling
your life with joy and peace.
And that's what he's talking about here.
God will resist the proud.
Then James 1, 14 through 15.
I'm going to set up the, now we're
going to get into James 4, 7, about
the devil made me do it.
But we read weeks ago that each one
of us is tempted when he is drawn
away by his own desires.
He is dragged away and enticed.
Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth
to sin.
And sin, when it is fully grown, gives
birth to death.
So that's what James talked about in the
first chapter.
Now he jumps in James 4, 7.
Therefore, submit to God.
So God's resisting the proud, but gives grace
to the humble.
Therefore, submit to God.
Remember, we always want to know when it
says therefore, to find out what it is
therefore.
And he's talking about being arrogant, resisting God.
Submit to God.
Resist the devil, and he will flee from
you.
And I think that's one of the things
we forget about being Christians, is we somehow
think temptation is easy.
It's easy to say no.
It's easy to resist.
It's no problem at all.
But we actually have to resist, meaning there's
a fight, meaning there's a struggle, meaning there's
a battle.
And we often go into that battle unarmed,
unprepared, and untrained.
And we fall on our face because we're
not resisting.
So when the resistance gets a little bit
tough, we give up.
When actually God says, resist the devil.
As we're submitting to God, we're resisting the
devil, and he will flee from you.
That's one thing about temptation.
Here's how temptation works.
It's pretty difficult, and then temptation reaches a
point that is very difficult.
And that is the defining moment in many
of our lives.
When you're fasting, and I'm pretty hungry, and
then three hours later you're starving, and that
temptation, or the lust of the flesh, the
less that temptation will start out.
And it reaches a crescendo.
That's the word I'm looking for, this high
point.
And it's at that point that we need
to make the decision to flee and to
resist.
And that's the point.
Once you get through that, and the temptation
starts to minimize itself, the devil will flee
away.
It's not like the devil is constantly tempting
all eight cylinders on this temptation, going, going,
going the rest of your life.
There's a point of victory, there's a point
of battle.
There's a point of another battle, there's a
point of victory.
So as you're resisting the devil, at some
point he will flee from you.
Draw near to God, and he will draw
near to you.
Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your
hearts, you double-minded.
God, James is pretty hard, isn't he?
Or is he just being honest?
And he's writing at a time when the
church was fairly old at this time, and
people can fall back into their ways.
So he's saying, cleanse your hands, what you're
doing.
You sinners, purify your hearts.
You double-minded.
So they were double-minded, loving the world,
loving the things of the world, and actually
engaging in sin.
They were not resisting the devil.
They were falling into temptation.
So James is giving a strong rebuke.
Lament and mourn and weep.
Let your laughter be turned to mourning and
your joy to gloom.
Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord,
and he will lift you up.
Now, personally, I think this is a lament.
Why is he saying lament and mourn and
weep?
Don't be laughing.
Let your laughter be turned to joy.
A lot of times, when people are caught
in sin, the party lifestyle, there's a lot
of laughter, there's a lot of joy, and
they're just mocking God.
He says, let that laughter, the enjoyment of
your sin, be turned into sorrow.
And really, this is how you get through
temptation.
Submit to God.
Resist the devil.
He begins to flee.
Then we draw near to God, and he
will draw near to us.
It's this image we have.
If I started walking towards you, you wouldn't
have to walk necessarily, but we're getting closer,
aren't we?
We're drawing.
God's drawing nearer.
So as I'm walking to anybody in this
room, if I started walking to you, I
would be drawing nearer to you.
And as a result, you're drawing nearer to
me.
And that's what God wants.
He wants that relationship to draw near to
him, and he'll draw near to us.
Lament and mourn and weep.
It means, Lord, I'm sorry that I've been
enjoying this and just laughing about the sin,
but I'm humbling myself.
I'm mourning.
I'm weeping in some cases, and I'm humbling
my sight.
I'm humbling myself in your sight, and God
will lift you up.
So it's really this passage is anybody wanting
to overcome a besetting sin, somebody trapped in
sin, James is giving the antidote.
This is it.
We submit to God.
We have to resist the devil because often
when we're caught in a besetting sin, we're
not resisting the devil.
What are we doing?
Oh, here it comes again.
I've got to stop by the liquor store,
or I've got to pick up this, or
I've got to look on the computer again.
It's this constant falling into sin because we're
not resisting the devil.
And what I would do, I've talked to
my mom before too because she counsels a
lot of people, and the key is a
lot of times is when you feel that
temptation coming, you change the environment or you
do something different.
You don't keep feeding on that and building
it and building it and building.
You walk away from.
For example, if you're having a struggle on
the computer, you just get up, you walk
away, you go do something else.
If you're angry, upset, you can feel it,
you're that volcano at home, then go take
a drive.
Grab a blessing CD on the way out
and just put that in.
I guarantee you after those five songs, you're
not going to be very angry when you
come home.
And you change that environment.
I know I've talked, God's put people who
are addicted on my heart.
I just met with a friend of mine
today, had lunch and he's probably drinking three,
four times a week, a large amount of
alcohol.
And he can feel it coming and feel
it coming.
And does he keep entertaining those thoughts and
thinking about it?
Where can he pick it up?
And it's plenty, I'll just take tomorrow off.
And so he starts thinking, but he nips
that in the bud right away.
Now he's not even a believer.
So I believe you're in bondage, that's hard
to break.
Willpower is not enough.
He's got to get his heart right before
the Lord.
But that's what temptation does.
That's why James, I read earlier, with this
little desire starts to build and starts to
build and starts to build.
And when we act upon those, that's how
temptation gains a stronghold.
By not resisting, that sin comes in and
it gains a stronghold.
Submit to the work of the Spirit, resist
the pull of the world, the devil and
the flesh.
So James is basically talking about obedience, isn't
he?
And that's a word we don't like to
hear in the church.
But I need to remind everyone in this
room that obedience saved Noah.
Wait a minute, Shane faithed, yeah?
But he had to build an ark.
He had to obey God.
And we have sometimes this idea of, they
call it hyper-grace, where you just take
advantage of God's grace, it's no big deal,
and you can keep on sinning, and don't
talk about obedience, don't talk about these hard
things, it's just all grace.
But grace is also followed by me living
up to what God, not perfectly, but following
God's commandments, and wanting to obey God, wanting
to honor His word.
And from that, that's how you begin to
push away the devil.
Now, it is a challenge.
Let me read one story I found many
years ago, and it actually came up this
week.
I want to share it with you tonight.
It's about a little boy named Alexander.
He was trying to save all of his
pennies so he could buy a baseball bat.
But he had a hard struggle.
One night when he was saying his prayers,
his mother heard him say fervently, Oh Lord,
please help me save my money for a
baseball bat.
And God, don't let the ice cream man
come down my street anymore.
Isn't that true?
Lord, help me save up money for my
baseball bat.
But don't let that ice cream truck come
down.
And he would spend his money on that.
And that's what temptation looks like.
Here's the interesting thing about temptation.
It takes from us, but at the same
time it looks so appealing.
If it didn't look good, we wouldn't take
the bait.
So the devil, well let me read commentator,
Klein Snodgrass, interesting name.
He said, mention of the schemes of the
devil, which is the trickery of the devil,
the deceit of the devil, reminds us of
trickery, by which evil and temptation present themselves
in our lives.
Evil rarely looks evil until it accomplishes its
goal.
It gains interest by appearing attractive, desirable, and
perfectly legitimate.
It's a baited and camouflaged trap.
Temptation always looks like that.
Like a young couple, like let's just live
together.
I mean, I know it's not right, but
we're saving on our taxes, you know, and
we can get to know each other first.
And then they don't see the years of
pain and regret that will bring later.
Or a person might indulge in something and
say, yeah, but you know, it just looks,
it's not that big a deal.
It's my off day, or it's this, or,
I mean, I've heard every excuse in the
book.
And I'm like, no, that's just an excuse.
But it presents itself.
Most affairs start by a person, wherever it's
at, and there's a relationship built, and it
presents like, well, this isn't a big deal.
This doesn't, you know, it looks fine.
This isn't going to result in anything.
A book I've mentioned before by Steve Farrar,
he interviewed 200 and something top people, Christian
leaders who fell in Christian ministry due to
usually sexual sin.
But in 80% of the cases, they
all said it would never happen to me.
They said, well, this will never, that will
never happen to me.
Why did it happen to them?
Many times because they didn't, it was a
baited and camouflaged trap.
The enemy's not going to show the hook
on the bait.
He's going to show the bait.
Now, here's how we get, because some people
go, oh, then I'm always going to be
tricked.
No, it's very easy, actually.
Only by comparing your thoughts and what your
actions are going to be to God's word
can we generate the motivation to resist.
So once I say, okay, here's what God's
word says about this, here's where this is
going to lead me, then I must make
a different decision, whether it comes to money.
Really, the enemy's going to come after the
lust of the flesh, the lust of the
eye, covetousness, what the eye goes after, and
the pride of life.
Those are the three areas that he concentrates
his attack.
When the woman, Eve, saw that the tree
was good for food, desirable to make one
wise, and appeared attractive as well.
All three of those he used.
And temptation always looks good, but I also
believe that a believer has some kind of
Holy Spirit umpire in him, blowing the whistle.
Don't go there yet.
No, no, don't go there.
Be quiet, be quiet, be quiet.
And we hear the conviction of the Holy
Spirit leading us and guiding us in the
right direction.
Now be encouraged though, temptation is also an
opportunity to do what is right by turning
from it.
Always.
Temptation is always an opportunity to do what
is right by turning from it.
Many times with temptation, you've got to know
the plan before the temptation comes.
And I've shared this before often, my wife
knows because she can check my email whenever,
but if I go to empty spam and
it says, Hi, my name is, and I'm
24, delete.
Blue hair, blonde, delete.
You just see, I don't care who you
are.
I don't need to see pictures that you
sent me.
Who is this person?
Delete, delete, delete.
It just has to be that quick.
But if you say, well maybe this is
a person from church.
That name looks kind of familiar.
Well, it's in spam though.
I mean, we start to play these games.
So temptation, you've got to know what's your
trigger.
For one person, it's this.
For another person, it's that.
And what's the trigger?
For example, we went, my brother came in
from Idaho.
I helped him all day yesterday.
It was a long day of moving, picking
up 40 yards worth of trash.
And they invite us to pizza and they
order pictures of beer.
The decision is no.
It's not even an option.
I can't do that.
See, the decision's made before it even starts.
But if you get there and you say,
well, I don't know.
One picture won't hurt, right?
Yeah, right.
I mean, you see, your mind, it'll play
with you.
And you have to decide what God's word
says before it happens.
That's part of overcoming temptation.
If you wait until you're in the thick
of battle, like, what am I going to
do now?
I don't know.
You know, and that's where, really, because when
he gets you into it, he starts to
plant thoughts.
Like, you deserve this.
Or you've been working hard all week.
Or they don't treat you right.
Or when was the last time you did
this?
Or you need to tell.
And he'll start building on that temptation with
those thoughts, those fiery darts of the enemy.
So that's how the enemy works.
And people say, man, Shane, the devil made
me do this.
No, they didn't.
He didn't make you do anything.
You did.
The devil made me got drunk.
No, you made me.
Did I say that wrong?
The devil.
I said it right.
Okay.
That's how it's done.
But no, but then they head to Las
Vegas for the weekend.
Or the devil made me spend all this
money.
No, you didn't budget.
And you didn't do anything.
Oh, the devil is coming against my marriage.
No, you are the meanest son of a
gun I have ever met.
And you backbite and you down talk your
wife.
That's the problem.
The devil didn't make you do it.
Especially in charismatic circles.
It's real big.
The devil, there's a spirit for everything.
The devil this and the spirit of this.
The spirit of lying.
The spirit of lust.
The spirit of this.
The spirit of all kinds of things.
Because if we can blame the devil, then
I don't have to take responsibility.
Well, the devil made me do it.
He can't make you do it.
All he can do is just plant thoughts
basically in your mind.
Or bring people, you know, situations.
He can't make us do anything.
Now, to me that's pretty safe.
You don't have to worry about that he's
going to make you like a puppet go
and actually do something.
And I've used to read, I've read stories
of guys that are in jail for the
rest of their life.
And they heard all these voices to go
kill somebody.
And actually the voices and things started small
when they were little.
And would build.
Bundy, that guy Bundy, I think he was
executed.
He got started on just soft core pornography.
Like catalogs from Sears and JC Penney's.
And then it turned into this.
And it got worse and worse and worse.
So that's what the enemy does.
He'll keep bringing those things.
Because the ultimate goal for the enemy is
to kill, steal and to destroy.
That's what he, he's not concerned with a
little this, a little slip up or a
little that.
He wants to kill and steal and to
destroy.
And submit and resist.
Oh, I want to keep reading.
Temptation is also an opportunity to do what
is right by turning from it.
See, temptation isn't wrong.
People sometimes be, Shane, where are these thoughts
coming from?
I've never had that thought before.
Right.
There's a season of testing sometimes that the
enemy will bring in thoughts.
But being tempted is not sin because Jesus
was tempted.
Jesus was tempted in all points like we
are, but was without sin.
So the temptation, the thought to do something
isn't the sin.
It's when you go out and do it.
That's when it crosses the line.
1 Corinthians 10-13.
No temptation has overtaken you.
This is going to burst the bubble to
some people.
Because they think nobody on planet earth has
ever went through what I'm going through.
Nobody's had to resist what I'm resisting.
Well, Paul said, no temptation has overtaken you
except such as is common to man.
But God is faithful who will not allow
you to be tempted beyond what you are
able.
But with the temptation, he makes a way
of escape that you may be able to
bear it.
So there's a whole bunch of exit doors
here.
There's exit doors everywhere.
But you have to bear it.
There's a price that has to be paid.
There's a resistance that has to be won.
The door of temptation swings both ways.
You can enter or exit.
Submit and resist, what I talked about earlier.
Like in dieting, when bad food is removed,
a healthy choice has to be added.
Same thing in spiritual areas.
When something is removed from your life, when
you start to step back and pursue God,
and you remove things from your life, you
have to add it with other things.
For example, I've known people who have tried
to get back on track with their life.
I'm just going to go sit at home
and watch TV.
I'm not going back out into that party
lifestyle or the world.
Well, sitting at home with this can eventually
lead back to that.
Because you're feeding your mind.
You're not adding things.
So what I would suggest is get plugged
into a Wednesday night study, in a Sunday
church, in a Bible study, a men's group,
a women's group, and you get plugged in.
You're adding more things as you're taking things
out.
If you just go and remove things but
don't add things, the enemy can come back
in.
Because idle hands are the enemy's workshop.
Idle hands are the enemy's tools.
All those sayings are true.
Because when we sit idle, we're bored.
And when we're bored, that's when temptation often
occurs.
The flesh is in rebellion against God.
Your flesh is in rebellion against God, so
feelings cannot be trusted.
You don't trust your feelings.
Puritan author John Owen said, Secret lusts lie
lurking in our own heart, which will never
give up until they are either destroyed or
satisfied.
Those lusts that are in our heart, they're
lurking, they're ready, and they're not going to
give up until they're either satisfied or they're
crucified.
That's how we have to handle things like
this.
And C.H. Spurgeon said, Beware of no
man more than yourself.
We carry our worst enemies within.
So as we're talking about defeating the devil,
submit and draw near to God regardless of
how you feel.
Because I can tell you as a living
witness that you will not feel like reading
the Word and fasting and going to church
and all these things sometimes.
Because we often say, well, I don't feel
like it, so I'm not going to do
it.
I feel like going to the movies.
I feel like watching the news.
I feel like going, you know, where do
you feel like going?
Some of those things are fine.
But if you always just go where your
feelings are going to go, you're rarely going
to go into God's Word.
You're rarely going to go to church.
You're rarely going to do the things that
God wants us to do if we just
allow our feelings.
And that's why I think the enemy goes
after feelings Sunday morning.
And spouses go like this.
Right?
We take two cars now, so it's been
a long time.
But I remember when we used to get
ready for church, getting the kids ready.
Oh, my.
The devil just loves it.
All week is fine.
No problems at all.
But come Sunday morning, where's the clothes?
Where's this?
We're running late.
Forget it.
Let's just not go.
And you go storming back in your room
and slam the door.
Nobody else does that?
That was a long time ago, though.
2005.
I don't think I'd slam the door.
But we usually made it.
But sometimes it was a...
Christians can be so fake.
Well, because you're mad and this.
And then you get there.
Praise you, brother.
How's it going?
Smiles.
Everybody's treating everybody nice.
Oh, I love you.
And wait a minute.
You were just fighting five minutes ago.
See, it tells me you can't control the
way you act.
It tells me you can't control the way
you act if you want it bad enough.
So that's the rebellion.
The flesh is a rebellion, so we can't
trust our feelings.
The devil doesn't make us do anything.
As I said, he simply presents the bait.
Blame shifting is very common.
The devil is coming after my finances.
People say, yet they fail to budget and
give and spend wisely.
The devil is destroying my marriage.
Yet spouses fail to truly love and serve
each other.
See, I remembered that earlier.
Be aware of opportune times.
Here's where the rubber is going to meet
the road.
There's probably not too much temptation going on
right now.
Usually.
It's when the opportune times present themselves.
Opportune times.
Luke 4.13 So
the devil was tempting Jesus.
He was hungry.
He was all these things.
The devil kept testing him and tempting him.
Eventually, he left.
But the Bible says he was going to
come back for an opportune time.
In battle, the enemy attacks at opportune times.
You might say, Shane, what is an opportune
time?
Well, if you look it up in the
Greek language, what it really means is it's
talking about a favorable wind blowing a ship
towards its destination.
So there's a ship out to sea.
The wind starts up, and it's actually blowing
the ship back to where it wants to
go.
That's an opportune time.
That's an opportunity there.
So if we look, the devil is looking
for that time when you're in a certain
place or in a certain setting where that
can happen.
For example, probably not going to want a
pitcher of beer right here.
But last night, it's everywhere, right?
You see the opportune times?
There was an opportune time right now.
That will never work.
But you throw me in that place a
hundred times and trying to deal with that
all the time, depending on this and that.
Obviously, you know as a pastor, you've got
to have a policy of abstinence.
People can enjoy beers now and then.
I'm not against that at all.
But I have to be even more careful.
So that would be an opportune time.
Or an opportune time of where nobody's at.
Or it's a vacation.
You know those times where he's going to…
Nobody's considering looking at pornography right now, are
they?
No, nobody in this whole room.
You get home tonight.
You go on Facebook.
Or you read garbage, books that are out
there, the Fifty Shades of Garbage and all
this stuff.
See, that's an opportune time.
Opportune time.
You can feel the anger in your home
and you're about ready to explode.
Oh, that's an opportune time.
I'm just going to go on a walk
and pray.
So he's looking for the…
And everybody's different.
Everybody's different.
Your opportune time might not be my opportune
time and vice versa.
So he goes around looking for those times.
And it's interesting.
There's something called…
They usually use it in addiction ministries, but
it's called the HALT principle.
And they don't know it, but it's spiritual.
They said you're most apt to relapse when
you're hungry, angry, lonely, or tired.
And I said, oh, that's for us too.
That's exactly opportune times.
Hungry, angry, lonely, and tired.
Because you're tired, you're snapped.
You're lonely, you do things you normally wouldn't
do.
You're angry, you're upset, your emotions are going,
hey, I'll show them.
And he's looking for these opportune times.
So that's what the enemy did.
He's going around looking for those times.
And that's one reason, as a parent, as
you're raising children, you should minimize those opportune
times in your house or the way your
family is constructed as often as possible.
You don't want to give the enemy a
foothold.
You don't want to present and give them
opportune times.
Be careful with what your kids watch in
your home.
It's okay to have parameters and rules because
you're there to guard them and shepherd them.
And avoid the enemy coming in.
So maybe you struggle with an addiction.
You're hungry, you're angry, you're lonely, you're tired.
Those will be times when he will go
after you.
And the final point, the source of our
strength comes from the food that we choose.
A daily diet of violence, lust, anger, and
depression will fuel those very things in our
lives.
See, this is the big reason, unlike most
of you, I know most of you here,
that we're careful on entertainment because you see
this big thing now with young adults on
vampires and the occult and witchcraft.
And I talk about that often, and that's
why.
Because as these kids feed on all of
this stuff, you see MTV now, it's just
garbage.
I mean, I was in an airport a
year ago, and I haven't seen it since
then, but just the garbage, it's unbelievable what
we're filling the mind of young adults, what
they're filling their mind with.
Stuff that now amuses us, amazed us years
ago, that we would never allow.
And so as they're feeding on this, that
is an opportune time, because as a man
thinks, so is he.
The more we feed on certain things, that
will either fuel temptation or help to quench
it.
So if you're watching certain things, and I
remember, I hope I'm not being too repetitive
because some of these things I've talked about
back in Lancaster, but I remember at a
men's conference where there was this man, he
came up forward, he was crying, and his
wife was leaving that weekend because of his
problem with pornography.
It's a huge issue.
And I was talking to him, and he
said, trying to isolate, he goes, yeah, every
time I love watching sports on ESPN, and
it starts with the cheerleaders and the commercials,
and that's where I keep, I said, okay,
this is a no-brainer.
Go home, tell her you're unplugging the television,
and you're gonna make the necessary changes that
you need to do and remove those triggers
that keep happening.
And I was, I didn't know what to
say to his response.
He looked at me, he said, I can't
do that.
Are you crazy?
I'm a sports fanatic.
And he kinda walked, I'm like, oh, Lord.
What don't we get?
That's why I like what A.W. Tozer
said.
Don't come up here and cry about it.
Go home and live it out.
He's not gonna make those changes because he's
a sports fanatic?
And he's about ready to lose his marriage?
I wanna, mm, man, right as he's walking
away, the back of his head.
But you see, that's what I was just
talking about here.
The source, that's why he's not doing well
spiritually, because they don't wanna let that go,
and you don't wanna let that go because
the flesh loves it.
The flesh doesn't wanna be submitted to God.
The flesh doesn't want, the flesh loves all
that juicy gossip about J.
Lo, and, is she even around?
Angelina, Brad Pitt, and Lady Gaga, and Madonna,
what they're saying about Trump, and oh, I
just gotta watch all this stuff, gotta watch
all this stuff.
And it's just, the flesh likes it.
But it's not healthy, it's not good.
It's not good to sit and watch all
of those things.
So just be encouraged.
No temptation has overtaken you except what is
common to man.
The devil won't make you do anything.
He's going to present the bait.
And what you're going through is no different
than what all of human history has went
through.
But God is faithful, not you, not me.
God is faithful.
He'll give you the way of exit.
He'll make it, but you're gonna have to
bear it.
There's gonna be a load to...
Somehow we have in this mindset that temptation's
going to be easy.
You wanna see how hard temptation is?
Try fasting for a day.
And you'll see your flesh is just amazing.
It's like a junkyard dog, pit bull.
You know those junkyard, they're out there.
That's where your flesh just comes alive and
just snaps.
And people get moody and irritable.
When you start telling the flesh, no, no,
I'm not gonna look at Facebook or the
news, I'm gonna read my Bible.
And you'll just start getting irritable.
Like, where is this going?
Because the flesh hates those things.
So God says, I'll make the way of
escape, there it is.
But you're gonna have to bear it.
It's almost like I'm carrying a hundred pound
weight.
Okay, I'm gonna make it.
But I've gotta carry something.
I've gotta bear something.
And I can make it to that exit.
So God's faithful.
The devil doesn't make you do anything.
He's not stronger than God.
And people say, I just couldn't resist.
Yes, you can.
As a believer, I believe you can.
I've seen...
I've talked to people in more bondage than
most of us have ever known, from heroin
or drinking every day for years.
And it's a harder struggle, but they can.
They have the ability to tell the devil
no.
I mean, either that's true or the word
of God's not true.
We can say no.
We don't have to say, it's my one
little vice.
I always cave in.
We can take a stand on that.
God will make a way of escape.
Let me remind you, draw near to God
and He will draw near to you.
Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your
hearts, you double-minded.
Double-minded, he's talking about they're being double
-minded here.
They're saying one thing, but doing another.
They're going to church, but going home and
looking at something else.
They're saying one thing, but being abusive at
home.
They're double-minded in all of their ways.
Lament and mourn and weep over your condition.
Let your laughter be turned into mourning and
your joy to gloom.
Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord
and He will lift you up.
Cleansing is basically confession, repenting.
Lamenting is a passionate expression of grief or
sorrow for what we've done.
Let your joy over sin be turned into
mourning.
This is genuine humility.
So that's how we...
Understand that it is a struggle, but it's
not impossible.
It's difficult, but it's not impossible.
It's going to be challenging, but it's not
impossible.
And what I like, the more you say
no on a certain area, the stronger you
become.
The more you say no, the more you
resist the enemy, he starts to lose that
power, and he withdraws.
So there's a battle.
It's difficult.
But you put on the full armor of
God, which if we had time, we could
go through that.
All the things that God talks about in
His Word, as you put those things on
and resist the devil, he will flee.
So let's leave it at that.
I'll have Blessing and Jason come up.
And we'll conclude in worship.
But I would just do some inventory tonight.
Some people just need to be encouraged.
Some people this might not apply to as
heavily.
But some people this might apply to real
heavily, that they're caught in sin.
And this sermon was hitting them head on.
James just says, cleanse your hearts, repent, renew
that fellowship with God, begin resisting that temptation,
but remove those triggers.
This is so elementary.
The Bible says, make no provision for the
flesh.
That word provision, it's almost like pornea, pornea,
poinoma, all these Greek words.
I get them confused a little bit.
But this one, make no provision for the
flesh, is actually forethought or planning.
You're not going to plan ahead to lust.
You're not going to plan ahead to sin.
It reminds me of the person who always
wants to lose weight, but has a pantry
full of junk food.
You're not going to succeed.
You've got to remove that ice cream, remove
that Twinkie, remove those donuts, remove that root
beer float.
You've got to remove all these things, out
of sight, out of mind.
It's the same thing in our spiritual walk.
We've got to remove those triggers.
That's not being weird, that's being biblical.
Make no provision for the flesh.
Don't plan ahead.
Remove those things, because if you plan ahead
to fulfill something, it will happen.
It will happen.
Because as our mind thinks, our feet go.