Alright, let's open in our Bibles to the book of James. Our gentlemen are coming forward, our ushers. If you'd like to take notes on a journal page that looks like mine, you're welcome to it. You can certainly use your own text. It's the same scripture that your Bible has, it's just in a journal form that looks just like this one. Otherwise, you can use your own. Just simply raise your hand if you'd like a piece of paper. They'll get one into your hands. As they're doing so, just a discussion on Wednesday night. I want to say thank you again for joining us on a Wednesday night. There are many things you could have been doing, and you chose to be here. And so we're thankful. that you have been here with us and you took it upon yourself as a priority to pray and study God's word. And I understand many of you are coming right from work or right from school or right from something else. And so you may come with hungry hearts for the word and empty bellies, right? You haven't eaten yet. And I wanted to let you know on Sunday, you'll begin to see a sign up that will be in the bulletins The first Wednesday of every month, starting in September, there will be a meal, a low-cost meal, that you can come and you can eat here. You can come right from work. The meal will start at 5.30. Moms and kids, you can come right, and dad can meet you here from work, or whatever. Wives and husbands, you can just meet here for dinner. This Wednesday, not this Wednesday, but September 6th is the first one. And it will be spaghetti, Caesar salad, and garlic bread. That sounds good to me. I don't know about you. The cost is just $5 for adults. We're only just trying to recoup the cost. We're not trying to make any money. We're just trying to break even. And adults are $5. Kids, 4 to 12, is $3. And 3 and under are free. So if you'd like to come, there will be a sign up in the bulletin, the tear-off sheet. You just sign up and tear it off. Lord willing, there'll be some boxes in the atrium there. You can drop them in. The sign up is not like a commitment so much as it is to help the ladies as they prepare the food to know how much to prepare. So I hope that you'll sign up to help them. So we don't run out of spaghetti. But the goal is to help you. I understand you come, you're ready, you're eager. Some of you probably haven't even eaten yet. And so we'd love to help and be a blessing to you. And we also want you to invite your neighbors to this. I have found over the years as a pastor that Wednesday nights really can and should become the most and the biggest outreach night of the week. We will have, I trust, Lord willing, and this is my prayer request, we will have more visitors coming on Wednesday night than any other service of the week. And I believe that can and should happen. I believe Wednesday nights at one point should be our biggest night of the week for that reason. And I believe that can and should happen. And I have seen that happen in our former ministry, and I pray that this will happen here as well. And so we're trying to have that happen here, and one of the ways is to make it easy for you to have a conversation with a neighbor, A coworker or whatever, you come bring them with you on a Wednesday night. If they are a visitor, moving forward, our visitor bags will change just slightly. And one of the things that we're going to include, Lord willing, moving forward in our visitor bags will actually be a coupon for a Wednesday meal. And that is because we want visitors to come. We want them to see our heart for the word. our desire to be around brothers and sisters in Christ, our lifting up of your prayers before the Lord, that can be a wonderful gospel testimony. So again, September, this first September, first Wednesday of September, you can look forward to a spaghetti dinner, and we'd love to have you join us for that. We are in James chapter one. In a moment we're gonna be reading verses 13 through 18, a portion of our verse memories. My guess is, that as you turn there, no matter who you are, you all are similar to me in that you don't like to be deceived. I know I didn't ask for a polling of that, but I think I'm fair in assuming that nobody here enjoys being lied to. Am I fair? I think I'm fair about that. When someone outright tells you a lie, it should bother you. And I'm sure you are bothered by the same things anybody else is bothered by. None of us like to be lied. Deceiving or being deceived just means to be led astray or to be brought to a false conclusion. And we are being deceived all the time, all the time, everywhere. Aren't we? Just think about it. I'm not talking about, though, your employers that might deceive you. I'm not talking about the media that might deceive you. I'm not talking about tonight's debate that might deceive you. All right? Anybody knew that was happening at 9 o'clock? All right? I'm thinking about a person who hits far closer to home than any of those people. The one person who lies to you more than anyone else that you'll ever see. It's the one you look at in the mirror. I'm talking about self-deception. And we have the uncanny ability, don't we, of convincing ourselves of all kinds of things that aren't true. In fact, before we look at our passages at the moment, Jeremiah 17 verse nine makes it very clear. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? That's one of those rhetorical questions. The answer is not us, that's for sure, because we keep lying to ourselves. And the thing of self-deception is especially troubling when we face trials. And that's where we find ourselves in our passage. But I want us to look at verse 16 and just highlight the theme of that verse where James says, do not err my beloved brethren. And that word that he notes there, that word that he says, er, right there, is the word that really means deceived. What he's saying is, do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. And the word is especially pertinent. He's really using a word that I'll put in here. It really is a word that means to be misled. He's saying, don't be misled by something. You're gonna have to help me out. I know the answer, but I wanna make sure you're thinking along with me in the book of James. What is happening here in chapter one? What is the main thing on the hearts and minds, no doubt, of everybody that is reading this book, and we can say no doubt because James addresses it at the beginning of his book as he says, I'm writing to these people that are facing this. What is going on right now in the book of James? Persecution, we saw that in verse one of our chapter. As I go back, verse one, he talks about these tribes that have been scattered abroad, and we noted the last few times we're talking about that diaspora. So there's these trials, and it's interesting that in the midst of trials, and a conversation that's been ongoing about trials, now we're going to talk about self-deception. That's what we're gonna talk about. You might say, why self-deception? Well, it's often in the midst of trials that we find ourself most squeezed to lie to ourselves about something. And it comes, the classic illustration in my mind goes all the way back to the first sin and its consequences afterwards. Remember Adam and Eve in the garden? And they both eat of the tree there, and God comes to Adam and asks Adam more or less, where are you and what are you doing, and what did you do? And you remember Adam's response in Genesis 3, verse 18, in the midst of all of this turmoil now? The woman who you gave me. Like right away, immediately, he's showing his true colors as a fallen man. That's not the issue, Adam. You're just lying to yourself. Aren't we so good at that? My question is, how, as we get to this passage, how do you view God in the midst of trials? And frequently, we are tempted to have an unbiblical view of God that comes out in the midst of difficulties, and in the midst of trials, we find ourselves most often tempted. And we're going to read James 1, verses 13 through 18, but I want us to just review where we've been and keep an eye on that. In chapter 1, verses 2 through 4, we learned about how to think about trials. That's what it's talking about, how to think about trials. In chapter one, verses five through eight, rather, we learned about how to pray in the midst of trials. We looked at that and we looked at how to pray and how to view life in the midst of trials. We looked at both of those last week when we were together. And now, in verses 13 through 18, the verses we're gonna look at and read in a moment, we're gonna look at how to view God. And all of this is in trials. The context did not suddenly change. It's not like he was talking about trials and then he diverted his attention to somewhere else. This is all in the midst of difficulties. This is all in the midst of trial. And he's saying, now I wanna show you, because there is a tendency in the midst of trials to blame God for temptation. And this is a problem because a denial of God, really a blaming of God, rather, is a denial of two key attributes of God that we're gonna see in these verses. But let's read them together. Verse 13, it says, let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God. For God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man. But every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin. And sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. Do not err. Don't be deceived. Don't be misled, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. Of his own will, and I cut it off on my box, I realize that. Of his own will, he begat us with the word of truth that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. There are two attributes of God at play in these verses that James is saying, if you see God as the great tempter, you are denying these two things about him. He says, number one, you're denying that God is holy and that, we'll see in the first few verses, verses 13 through 16, a denial that God is holy, and number two is a denial that God is good, and we'll see that in verses 17 through 18. God is holy and therefore cannot be the source of temptation. And God is good and therefore cannot be the source of temptation. And God is unchangeably both holy and good. But I want us to start by looking at God as holy. God is holy and therefore he cannot be the source of temptation. Look again at verse 13 of this passage. God is holy and cannot be the source of temptation. Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man. Help me out. What word is repeated four times in verse 13? Tempted, let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man. There you have it, four times in one verse, we have this same word tempted. By the way, it's not the first time he's already used this verse in this chapter, or this word in this chapter. When did he first use it? What's that? Verse one. Now we have a problem on our hands, right? Because I thought we were talking about trials, and now we're talking about temptations. Did he really use it twice? And the answer is yes. I know that's small. I'll try to bring it in there for just a moment. You'll see that he uses temptations in verse two, really. And then he used it again in verse one. Here's the word in verse 13. That's being, that word tempted, I'm being tempted, and we see it again, the root of that again here, and we're gonna see it again here, we see it again here, there is that word. He used it in verse one, but this is now the verb form of the noun form of trial in verse two, not verse one, the noun form of trial in verse two. And the same Greek word can be translated one of two ways. We could call this word temptation, or what's another way we could call this word? What's another word we could call it? Trial. So is this talking about trials or temptations, and how do we know the difference? Because the same Greek word can be translated as temptation or trial. What's that? Where it comes from, what's another way we'd say it? The context. All right, so let's look at the context in verse two and let's ask ourselves, is this talking about a temptation or a trial? I know we did this before. Here it is in verse two. My brethren, he's talking about this again. My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various, and this says temptations. Is this temptation or is this a trial? Why do you say trial? You don't count temptation's joy. I hope you don't. All right? We're talking about, in this verse, we're talking about a trial. Now, this is another example, though. Let's go down to verse 12, right? The verse right before our verse at hand. Blessed is the man who endureth temptation. Is this a temptation or is this trial? You guys, you're saying, Pastor Caleb, it's a Wednesday night? We haven't even had spaghetti dinners yet. That's in two weeks. This is a trial. Why is this a trial? We would never and should never persevere under temptations. What do you do to temptations? You don't persevere under them. You flee from them. You resist them. You persevere under trials. You don't persevere under temptations. Now we come to verse 13. Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man. Is this a temptation or is this a trial? This is a temptation. How can I say that for sure? Because God does send trials. Think of any examples? Job, right, would be an example. Of course, he allowed it in that case. Now, here's a question. Why one word for two completely different, in our view, concepts? Why not have another word? Well, the answer is because these two concepts are so closely intertwined with one another. God does not... God does appoint trials. God does not appoint temptations, he does appoint trials. The trial from God, yes, the temptation from God, no. But in the midst of my trial, that's where I'm often gonna find myself most often tempted to do wrong. Are you tempted to lie? We'll just use a student example, because I know everybody who started school, high school and college. Are you tempted to cheat on your test if you know all the answers? Normally not, right? Are you tempted if all of a sudden you look at that, you've studied, and you're like, I don't recognize anything on that page? Now you're tempted. Are you tempted, to use a different example, are you tempted to lose your cool with your spouse when all is well and you're on the beach enjoying a relaxing vacation? Maybe not as much, but would you be more so when things are getting tight at the end of the month and you just had your car break down? You see how these can be very intertwined, how trials and temptations really come together. And it's no mistake then that James in the same chapter where he introduced trials now discusses temptations. But James says, neither tempteth this God, neither tempteth he any man. And I don't know how the text could be any more clear. What's this text just simply saying? This verse is saying any number of ways, God doesn't tempt. Why does God not tempt? Because he's holy. God can't do that. Notice again though, he says something interesting. I skipped by this word, we'll come back to it now. And that is the word, I'll use a different color maybe to make it stand out a little bit more, that the word of, there. The word of, he uses an interesting preposition, and it's interesting that he chooses to use that. I'll pull up verse 13. Here's the preposition that he uses, the word oppo or by. It's a preposition to indicate a, and I'll put it down, this preposition indicates a remote source. And in the Greek language, he could have chosen to use a different preposition, which would have indicated a direct source. But James chooses to use this preposition to indicate a remote source. And the point James is making is that not only does God not directly tempt me, but God cannot even remotely tempt me. That's the point he's trying to make. You can't even try to connect the dots far enough back to get yourself to God. And people do that all the time, don't they? I mean, just think about it. If we're being honest. Well, I'm just angry because I'm just born a naturally angry person. What did you just try to do? Try to just remotely kind of get all, well, it's just how I'm wired. You ever heard that one? I wouldn't be so tense if it wasn't for my family upbringing. What are we trying to do? We're deceiving ourselves. We're shifting it back, and we're trying to remotely connect. Well, if it hadn't been for my work environment, I wouldn't have been there. If it hadn't been, and I mean, how many, we're masters at excuse making, aren't we? And James uses this preposition, which is very interesting, to just say, and he could have used a different one. He could have made it more of a direct source. He uses this one to make it a remote source, just to make it really clear, you can't even attempt to connect any of your wrongdoing back to God. No matter what happens, God is too holy for that. I found this poem I came across from Richard Burns, who's a Scottish poet. He wrote a poem called A Prayer in the Prospect of Death in 1781. Let me see if you think this is good theology or not. I'll just read a stanza of it. Thou knowest that thou hast formed me with passions wild and strong, and listening to their witching voice has often led me wrong. Good theology or bad theology? That's pretty bad theology. What's he trying to do? You made me that way. This, by the way, is becoming an increasingly popular lie of our culture, is it not? And it's packaged in a more palatable form where we say, well, you just need to learn to love yourself. It's a more palatable way of just saying, well, it's not your fault that you were made that way. But we are fallen beings, we don't need to learn to love ourselves, we're already good enough at that. We need to deny ourselves and learn to love God. And God is holy, he does not tempt you, he doesn't tempt anyone. But this leads us to a very interesting interpretational question we can bring up on a Wednesday night. Some of you are thinking students, and you've memorized the Lord's Prayer, and you're thinking of a phrase in the Lord's Prayer that now bothers you in light of our discussion. Anybody know what I'm thinking about? Matthew 6, 13. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. What do we do here? Why would we pray such a prayer if James is saying God does not tempt us? You say, Cascule, why'd you even introduce that? We're not even in James, you could've left well enough alone. Well, I don't know, sometimes I like to poke the hornet's nest, so here we go. Some of you were thinking that way, so let's think that way. Well, one way to deal with this is to remind us that the word temptation can also be translated Trial, that would help us out. In fact, sometimes you could read it this way. Do not bring us to the time of trial. That's one way you could phrase this. Do not bring us to the time of trial, but deliver us from evil. Kenneth West, he combines these two ideas, and here's how he says in his commentary. Do not lead us to the place of testing where solicitation to do evil will lead us to sin. You see what is going on? You understand why trial and temptation, one word, has a pretty clear overlap. I think it's interesting, when you start doing inductive studies, you realize, you get these aha moments, I hope some of you are getting these aha moments this evening, and you're realizing that the walk of sanctification is not often tried and tested and grown when the sun is out and everything is bright and shiny. Normally it's in the trying times that we see the real you come out. In that moment, do not say. By the way, he continues and says, just to add more to it, God cannot be tempted with evil. That means God is incapable of being solicited to do evil. God cannot do anything wrong. God couldn't even do wrong if he wanted to. Not that he wants to, because he doesn't want to, because he's holy. This answers the age-old flip a coin, is Jesus peccable or impeccable question. Anybody know what I'm talking about? Peccable would mean Jesus was able to sin, but he chose not to. And impeccable, Jesus was not able to sin, and he did not sin. And what would you say, what would we say about that? Well, Jesus could not sin if he is truly God. Habakkuk 1 verse 13 puts it this way. Thou art of pure eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity. Where then does temptation come from? If James has hammered home again and again, it doesn't come from God. Where does it come from? Well, the answer is verse 14 and 15. Every one of you needs to know this is true of who we are. Every man is tempted of his own lust, and there are three words in verse 13 that are the key to what James has been saying up to this point. Three very important words. Every man is tempted of his own lust. Those are the three words. Where does temptation come from? Your own lusts. What's the word lust mean? A wrong desire. The desire for anything that God does not want me to have. That's what a lust is. Now do an exercise. If you're willing to get your toes stepped by your own thoughts for a moment. When I sit around thinking about what would make me happy, If I am thinking about anything other than God, you could call that a lust. So whose lust is it? It's my own lust. It's frequently said our hearts are our own idle factories. We constantly think, God, I would be happy if my health were better. My health were better, I'd be happy. God, I would be happy if I had more money in the bank. Or God, I would be happy if my kids would just listen to me all the time. I would be happy if I had a bigger house and a nicer car. A friend, every one of those is a temptation to lust. None of them come from God. They all come from our own sinful hearts. We are excellent deceivers. We are idle makers. And temptation is not a battle that is around me. Temptation is a battle from the inside. And whenever I look at something outside of me as the source of the temptation, I am looking in the wrong place. Friend, this is very important for us to understand who we are as we follow God. You can't create enough walls and enough safeguards to keep you from your heart. You need God to change your heart from the inside out, not the outside in. And there's a great group of people example about that even in the New Testament. The Pharisees were excellent wall builders. They were constantly erecting walls around the truth in their faulty attempt to protect what they thought was right and all they were doing with those walls was creating more idols. One person said, some of the best idol worshipers, in the bad way, best, maybe we could say instead of the best, those that worship idols the most, aren't the ones bowing down to a little statue, but the ones singing holy, holy, holy on Sunday morning in church. It's really true. If God is not the source of temptation, who is? We are the source of temptation. And if God is not the source of temptation, then what is God the source of? And that's where we find not only is God unchangeably holy, but God is also unchangeably good. He is not the source of temptation. evil temptation, but he is the source of this. And he says, this is who our God is, every good gift and every perfect gift that comes from above and come down from the father of lights. That's who our God is. And in case you ever wanted to understand what the word every was means, what does the word every mean? There you go, that's pretty easy, isn't it? I like words that just define themselves. Hopefully you got that one. Every, it's like mom take out the trash and he takes out one cup. He didn't take it all out, right? Still gonna get in trouble, right? All means all and every means every. Pretty simple for us. And when he says, he uses an interesting phrase. He describes God as the father of lights. What is he talking about when he talks about the father of lights? Not to think too hard about this. Most believe this is a reference to celestial light. The sun and the stars. Who made the sun and the stars? God. Who made the sun and the stars to shine? God. The father of lights. And it's also interesting, I believe, to note that he's not the father of darkness. He's the father of light. 1 John 1 verse 5 makes that clear. God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. So we could say, and we would correct in this verse to say, there is not one good thing you could name for me right now that didn't come from God. If it is truly good, it is from God. And if it is not truly good, it is not from God. And God couldn't even do anything but good because that is the entirety of who he is. He is good and he is holy. And to make it even clearer, he says, this God, it has no variableness. That's an interesting phrase. What does the word variableness mean? And actually, the illustration kind of writes itself when you look at the word in the Greek. And there is the word. And really, we get from this Greek word, we get our English word, the English word parallax. Anybody remember from science class what a parallax was? Some of you are thinking, it had been a while since I was in high school science class. A parallax is the apparent displacement of an object, especially a heavenly body when viewed from two different locations on a straight line. That's a parallax. It looks different depending on where you're looking at it on the scope of things, right? In some, a different way, but in some ways a parallax would be like you watch athletes on television and they look as big as they do on TV, and then you stand next to one of those giants that play in basketball, and you realize in real life he's seven feet tall, right? I know it's not quite what a true parallax is, but it gives you an understanding. You've got a perception of what they look like on the screen, and then you stand next to him and you're like, oh man, that is, he is way, that is way different than what I thought. The scale is way different. So what's, when he says God is without, if you could say a parallax, what's he saying? He looks the same no matter where you read about him. He is who he is. When you read about God, and Elijah and all that fire from heaven stuff, and you read about him closing the mouths of the lions, and you read about these awesome stories, what James is saying, that's just God, that's who he is. The scale remains the same across the centuries. There is no variation. By the way, variation can be good and fun. I like to change things up. It's not fun when we're talking about character though, is it? I don't want you to have a variety of characters. There's a diagnosis for that, okay? God has no change. This is who he is. He is the same. We don't have to worry about one day God's good and the next day he's had a bad mood. You have to worry about that about us though, don't we? I don't even, some of you, I don't even know if we wanna talk to you until you had your cup of coffee, right? I mean, that's just who you are, just a different person once you get that caffeine in you. God is the same. He is good. And in case you're wondering, he says, not only is there no variation, there's no parallax, he also says, in addition to that, there is neither shadow of turning. You know what a shadow on a sundial looks like, right? At one hour, it's gonna be the same, but given time, that shadow's gonna move around the sundial. God doesn't move. Any verses about that you can think of? You don't have to give me the reference, just a quote. I am the Lord thy God, I change not. It's the only one, I guess. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Is that what you're gonna say? Yeah, in Hebrews? How about just do a study on the unchanging nature of God? That would be a fun one. God is the same. God is unchangeably good. And if James stopped in verse 17, I think he made his point. Don't you think? I think he's pretty well made his point. But he didn't stop in verse 17. He presses further in verse 18. And just in case you had forgotten how good God was, James says this, of his own will, of his own will begat he us. Literally, this word means of his own will, he birthed us. Of his own will, he birthed us. God is so good that he knew there was no chance for us to spend eternity with him unless we were born again. And God's goodness is displayed in the fact that he birthed us into his family. In fact, you could also translate it, not only he birthed us, but you could translate us, he made us his own. That's what he's saying. Of his own will, he made us his own. And I want you to understand and not get tripped up on this. He is saying his own will. How was it that I was born again? Did I earn it? I can't earn my way to heaven. And God is so good that he made a plan. That's the goodness of God. How can I doubt God's goodness when my salvation was caused according to his will? Some believers who are struggling and doubting tonight need to hear me say that again. How can you doubt God's goodness if he saved your soul? It was not of my own will. Now I know, theologically speaking, people will argue until they're blue in the face about this. And I don't think that's healthy, and I don't think that's even biblical. Because I think we just take it in context and understand what James is saying. What is James' point? Why did he give this to us here? So that we can have coffee shop conversations from here into eternity? Is that his point? so that seminary professors can look smart and the rest of us can feel dumb? Is that what he's trying to do? What is he trying to do? Why is he saying, what is the context? I think I gave it to you, at least I'm trying to. His point is not to confuse, his point is to comfort. That's what his point is. It's as if James is saying to those arguing against him, God's not really good. It's as if James is saying, come on. Every good gift is from God. And they're going, yeah, but there's some bad stuff. And James goes, come on, he gave us salvation. It's like the absolute trump card to anybody who says God must not really care. Come on, what are you talking about? And notice he says that we would be the first fruits of salvation. that we would be the first fruits of his creatures. Now to understand this, you have to understand the agriculture economy. that this would have been written in. I mean, this is not Old Testament times, but it's pretty close. The last Old Testament prophet being John the Baptist, so it's not that far away. And this is now, you know, an agricultural society. And in the agricultural society, and this was certainly true in the Old Testament, they were commanded to do this. In harvest time, they would take a portion of that initial harvest, the first fruits of that initial harvest. And they would sacrifice before the Lord the first fruits of that initial harvest as a representative of the whole to say, thank you, Lord, for the harvest to come. This is a way of saying, God, this little bit, these first fruits are yours. It represents all of the rest that is still yours. Now, who is James talking to as he writes the book of James to help us understand why we're talking about first fruits? Who is he talking about? He's talking about specifically these Jewish believers. These are some of the early first converts. And if you think this is exciting, James is saying, if you think this is salvation stuff is exciting, just you wait. You're just the first fruits. There are centuries more that are still coming. It's 2023 and God is still good. And God is still saving souls centuries later. And James is telling these early Christians that are struggling, no doubt, very much in trials. You think God's good? I think I made my point, James is saying. I'm not done being good. That's God. You're the first fruits. There are so many more. One of the very real problems, friend, we face is deception, though. Not deception from other people. Deception starts in our own wicked hearts. In the midst of rough times, we may entertain deceiving thoughts like, God, how could you be holy and tempt me in this way? Or God, how could you be good and put me through this difficult stuff? And James is saying God is holy. He doesn't tempt anybody. Anything good is only from God, that's who he is. And may these two simple truths encourage you in times of trial not to fall into temptation. Do not err. Don't make this error of deceiving yourselves. God is holy and God is always good. Questions, comments, discussion as we close this evening. Yes, JR? Well, and it wouldn't be the same. Word study there. He said, God tempted Abraham. Well, it's the same. It's a trial word, the same as that. It would be, this is a trial that God put him in. He didn't tempt him to do evil. This is a trial. Morgan, was that your same question? No, it's not. If you're married, it has to be the same question. That's how it works. Go ahead, Morgan. Yes, I was just wondering if you could reconcile this really quick. Matthew says to lead us not into temptation or trial, like he says, but we don't sin. But then in James 1, 2, and 3, it says, but it's good because it brings us all to patience. Yeah, and that's where I thought the helpful, let me just, because I know we went through a lot of material. I really appreciated Kenneth Wee's combination of the two ideas, because to me it helped unlock exactly, because I was having that same dilemma. He says, and let me just quote him again, do not lead us to the place of testing where solicitation to do evil will lead us to sin. So the prayer is that we don't even get remotely close to the temptation line. Does that make sense? That the trial wouldn't push us to that side. And I think we have a good example of that even in Job, because Job refused in the midst of trial to ever get to that line, right? Yes, Debbie? That's exactly right. Debbie mentioned God does not give us more than we can bear. There's always a way of escape. Yep? I think part of our conclusion is that we are wanting to look with a utopian view in a fallen world. That's right, yeah. He said we want to look with a utopian view in a fallen world. And that is correct. And I think that's part of what the author of Ecclesiastes even referenced, that God has woven into our hearts a view of eternity. And I bring up the author of Ecclesiastes because Ecclesiastes, he tries everything. I mean, he literally tries wealth, he tries the party lifestyle, he tries the poverty lifestyle, he tries the difficult lifestyle, he tries the lifestyle of great having everything at your fingertips, and his conclusion is no matter what, this is all vain. It's all empty. And his conclusion is I don't care how far we push and where we go, And the conclusion ultimately is the goads push us to the nails that tell us about the real truth, that God really does care. I think that's an astute observation in the midst of trials. Often, by the way, before I take that, how many have seen testimony of that, how trials have led people to the Lord? I mean, there may be even some in this room that actually the trials are what caused someone to come to Christ, and there may be others in this room that say, I'm closer to God because of the trial that God put me through. Yeah? I was going to say that if you don't have trials, you don't know, never know how much you love the Lord and how much you think He's good enough, and then say, okay, well, that's a good trial for me because I want to be closer to God. We're learning through those trials to grow, exactly. Yes? Yes, I should. You are not the first to ask that. Many have asked. I've got some interlinear texts up here, and then I've got the journaling Bible up here. I know not all of you can see my tablet. You're seeing my presenter mode on here. I've got all those tabs open. A good interlinear is not hard to find. You can find them online even. Some of them are free. They can be helpful. And I'm doing this not to pull this up and say, wow, we're parsing Greek together. No, I want you to understand. We're so blessed in this country, speaking English, to not have to always all have to have a Greek knowledge to understand the Bible. And I don't want anybody here to walk away thinking, well, I gotta go take Greek class to unlock the Bible. That is not what we're communicating. We have so many valuable resources right at our fingertips, and we need to be good students of those resources we've been blessed with. I mean, you think about all those that died just to have the Bible in their own language. We can not only have the Bible in our own language, but I can pull up the Greek and have the language there for you. But there are good interlinear texts that you can purchase if you'd like a hard copy. You can get them online for free. I don't know if anybody has Logos. It's a good program. The Blue Letter Bible is free online. You can use that as well. I have a program on my phone. Let me see if I can pull it up. It's called Parallel Plus. If you wanted to download that, that's a free in the App Store called Parallel Plus. And I can pull up, on this side I've got three texts together. If I flip it sideways, I have five and one of them is the interlinear. So that can be a help to you. You may wanna try some of these and help them be a blessing to you. So I appreciate that. Many have asked and I keep thinking I probably should answer that at some point. Yes? of that is in John 17, 15, he says, I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. Yeah. So that's kind of the idea. Yep. Absolutely. That's exactly right. Camus, I saw your hand. Yeah, not to bring up a theological can of worms, but I've got one minute to answer your theological can of worms tonight. What would you say about Exodus 7, when God hardens Pharaoh's That is a good one. He said, what do you say about Exodus 7 and God hardening Pharaoh's heart? I have an article I wrote about it, and I'll just send you that. How about that? Because I got one minute. But I do have, that is a good one, and I appreciate it. I had a professor, he's now retired. I'm sure some of you know Dr. Royce Short, and he pastored for years in Utah. And over the years, he would write a white page, one-sided piece of paper. He told us about this in class, and I've tried to do my best at doing this, about questions like that that people would ask. And so people would ask a question like that, and he said, if you stay with me afterwards, I'll give you a copy of a paper on that. I don't know how big his file got after years of pastoring, but he had all these articles. He'd just hand them and help them out. Mine is, I'm sure, not as good as Roy Schwartz's paper on it, but I can send you something on that. So just send me an email. I'll reply to it on that one. Well, I appreciate you coming out again this evening. My encouragement to you is to continue your memory work, and we'll be coming back together next Wednesday, Lord willing, and invite a friend if you can. This is a very uniquely different service than our other services, and it's intentionally done that way. We want you to be good students of God's word, and my hope and prayer is that this will help you whet your appetite to do more of this at home. But let's close our time in a word of prayer, and we'll be dismissed. Lord, we thank you so much for the privilege to come together and to just study and immerse ourselves in the text. And Lord, may we be people of the book. And Lord, we're thankful for the discussion and a healthy one that can be had each night. And we pray that this has been an encouragement and a challenge both to those who have joined us. Bring us back again, even Sunday, and again next Wednesday. Maybe bring a friend or two with us. That would be an encouragement to hear this. We pray all this in your name. Amen.