This message was given at Grace Community Church in Minden, Nevada. At the end, we will give information about how to contact us to receive a copy of this or other messages. Let's turn to Genesis chapter 3. Read verses 1 through 7. This is God's holy and inspired word. Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, indeed, as God said, you shall not eat from any tree of the garden. The woman said to the serpent, from the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat, but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, you shall not eat from it or touch it or you will die. The serpent said to the woman, you surely will not die. For God knows that in the day that you eat from it, your eyes will be opened and you'll be like God, knowing good and evil. When the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate. But she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings." This is the word of the Lord. On the night our Lord Jesus was betrayed, He turned to Simon Peter and he said, Simon, Simon, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat. Jesus would go on a little while later and say to his disciples in the garden, watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The Apostle Paul, writing to the Thessalonians, he had been with them for a mere three weeks, could write to them and say, for this reason, when I could endure it no longer, I also sent to find out about your faith for fear that the tempter might have tempted you and our labor would be in vain. Satan is the tempter. He is our enemy. And in fact, he is a crafty and a shrewd enemy. He's been at this for a very long time. He has strategies. And in fact, Paul tells the Corinthians about their need to forgive a repentant offender. And this is what he says. He says, you need to forgive so that no advantage would be taken of us by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his schemes. We said last week that the passage that we're looking at, Genesis chapter three, verses one through seven, needs to be looked at at two different levels. The first is, in a sense, what we could call the historical level. What happened in the garden historically when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit? Then I said we need to look at it at what we could call the archetypal level or that is what do we learn by way of example about the nature of temptation, the nature of sin, and the strategies of the devil. So last week we looked at the historical level of the garden and I pointed out and expounded the following points. Number one, Adam and Eve failed to guard the garden temple. Number two, their disobedience to God is original sin by which Adam plunged himself and all of his posterity into a state of sin, misery, and death. The third observation at that level is that the serpent is none other than Satan, who is the enemy, not only of our first parents, but of all of us. Number four, the fall, and thus sin, was a part of God's eternal decree. And then number five, the fall constituted us as sinners in Adam. So this morning, what we're going to do is we're going to look at the passage from a different level, and that is, what do we actually learn in Genesis 3, 1 to 7 about the nature of temptation, the nature of sin, and Satan and his devices? And the first is, should be abundantly obvious to us, and that is this, Satan attacks God's Word and God's goodness. One of the very first things that we see as the serpent begins to interact with Eve is this little innuendo that we expounded a couple weeks ago. Has God actually said, And by innuendo, Satan begins to, as it were, cast doubt upon the word of God. And then Satan later says, indeed, by the way, denies God's word, you shall not surely die. And then says, indeed, God knows that when you eat of the fruit, you will be like him. And so Satan attacks God's Word and he attacks God's goodness. I hope you understand that spiritual warfare in and of itself is actually a battle between truth and error, between faith and unbelief. And Satan always poses as a serious theologian. A serious theologian who has deep and serious questions about the person of God, and he's actually more than willing to put those questions out there. Things like, if God was good, would He allow you to be childless for so many years? If God was really good, do you think that He would be letting this happen to you right now? If God was good, would he really be letting your marriage fall apart? If God was good, would you have really got cancer? If God was good, if God was good, if God was good, would he have? And Satan begins to insinuate that God is not really nearly as good as you think he is. If God loved you, why did he let this happen? If God loved you, why didn't he stop that? Sometimes the insinuation focuses on prohibitions. Would God really have told you that you couldn't do this if he was really interested in you being happy? All Satan is doing is he's trying to bring doubt to God's character and to God's word. And one of the fundamental questions that you have to ask yourself day in and day out throughout the entirety of your Christian life is this, who am I going to believe? Am I going to actually believe God and His Word, or am I going to give in to and believe the insinuations and attacks of Satan? That's what the battle comes down to time and time and time again. God's word is what brings life. Satan's word is what brings death. And yet Satan would present his word in such a way that it always seems a little better, a little more insightful than what God has to say. Satan would have us pick and choose what we want to believe about God's truth. He would have us think that somehow I have to know better than the Bible. I have to know better what makes for my own happiness than what the Bible has to say. Satan is a master at insinuating, you understand that God's holding out on you. You need to go ahead and do what you please. You need to set the agenda because God's not looking out for your happiness. Satan is the one who always focuses on the prohibitions that God has set and actually insinuates that in those prohibitions, what God is really doing is He's actually is holding back from you because He knows that if you were to indulge and to engage, that you would actually find a level of happiness that obeying Him never brings. Satan is always impugning God's character. Satan is always trying to undermine God's goodness. And so I say to you this morning, be careful of the serpent's hiss. You know, it really is an amazing thing to me because when we're sitting here on a Sunday morning, we hear this, we see it in the scripture, we understand, you have truth and error, you have truth and lies, you have faith and unbelief, And boy, that just seems so clear and so straightforward, and you can run that through the grid of your life experiences, and you can say, you know what, that has been so true, I see that. And then yet, in the moment of temptation, when Satan begins to make his insinuations, and begins to undermine God's goodness, and begins to cast doubt on God's Word, all of the sudden, we begin to lack clarity, and we begin to listen when we should be stopping our ears Seeking only the word of the Lord. This is our battle every single day. Every day. whether it is in the little things or in the big things, this is our battle every day. And so, Alan Ross makes this observation in his commentary, he says, a thorough knowledge of the Word of God and an unwavering trust in the goodness of God are absolutely essential for spiritual victory over the world, the flesh, and the devil. Did you hear that? A thorough knowledge of the Word of God and an unwavering trust in the goodness of God are absolutely essential for spiritual victory. You have to be armed with the Word of the Lord, which is the sword of the Spirit. You have to be armed with God's truth. It has to be dwelling in your heart richly. It has to be treasured in your heart if you are going to effectively fight the lies of the serpent. You have to be convinced down to your very toes that what the Bible says about God is true. Psalm 119 verse 68, you are good and you do good. The Bible does not tell you that you have to understand how this is good or how God is going to use it for good. You don't have to understand any of that. You don't even have to understand how God Himself can be good in the midst of darkness and trial and temptation and sorrow and suffering. But what you must do is you must embrace by faith, not by sight, that God is good and He does good and I will not give place to the character assassination attempts of the evil one. He is so good and crafty. I'm not going to ask for a show of hands, but any of you that have walked with God for any amount of time, I can guarantee that there have been times where the serpent's hiss has called into question the goodness of God, and it has launched you into a whirlpool of self-pity. That's what Satan will do time and time and time again. Second, Satan disguises sin. In other words, he hides the bait well. Now, I only fish with power bait. But at least I know that on a treble hook, you have to cover the whole hook. Right? You don't leave the hook showing. Satan is a master at this. Think about that episode in the garden. There's Eve. She's standing in front of the tree. The serpent has her exactly where he wants her because now she's focused on what she can't have. And what she can't have starts to now look like what? Good for food. a delight to the eyes, desirable to make me wise. And so we have to understand that Satan is good at what he does, and therefore temptation is typically so effective because, first of all, temptation to sin is always powerful. You do realize that. If temptation was not so powerful, guess what? We'd sin a whole lot less. Is that not true? The devil knows, and so very powerful. It's like a current in the river, and you get that undercurrent that becomes so powerful that once you're down there, there's virtually nothing you can do about it. I used this illustration many years ago, and it takes me back to being in seventh grade, and my teacher was Mrs. Cassis, And yes, she was, until I met Ariel, the most beautiful woman in the whole world that I'd ever met. She was also my third grade teacher. And every year, the seventh grader, she owned some property outside of Loomis. And her property had a stream that went through it. And so we get to her property and then she tells us what we can and cannot do. She lays down the rules for us. And she told us we could bring inner tubes if we wanted because you could actually kind of float down the stream. And so once we all got there and she's going laying out the rules, she tells us very, very clearly, she says, you can get in the inner tube and you can ride, but where the stream starts to bend by that fallen tree, that's where you have to get out. Do not go past that fallen tree. She goes, what happens is, is that that stream goes and makes that turn, the current starts to get faster and faster. And it's dangerous. Well, that sounded like an invitation to me. And so, my little friend, Bobby Kermay, Yes, that was his name. Bobby Kermay and I looked at each other and we said, you know what? Let's go past the fallen tree. And so we did. And of course, as we were kept going, classmates were telling us, you better get off. You better get off. You're going to get in trouble. Nobody said you're probably going to drown. And so as the current picked up, we were kind of having fun. And then all of a sudden, we realized that the waves were a little harder and higher, and the water was a little faster. And both of us ended up falling off our inner tubes. And both of us almost drowned. Now, we didn't go back and announce that to everybody right away. But it was dangerous. It didn't look dangerous. Didn't look dangerous, but the warning was clear. Don't go past that point. You go past that point and it is far more dangerous than you think. Well, temptation works almost exactly the same way, right? So when we are least aware of how powerful it is, that's when it is actually the most powerful. Temptation always, always has as its goal to get you to think, you know what, you can go past that line and you can be okay. You can go past that line and you can have fun. Temptation always offers you something, but understand this, temptation always has as its utmost goal to bring us to sin and to ruin. That's what temptation's goal is. Temptation is not just playing around with us. Temptation is not just flirting with us. Temptation has as its design, under Satan, our destruction. And so the temptation to sin, you have to understand that what that temptation to sin is, is that sin now is a brutal sin. You're being tempted to enter into something that is absolutely brutal. Why? Because sin itself knows no boundaries. And sin itself respects no standards. The Bible personifies sin many times, and sin never, as it were, stands back and says, well, I'll let that guy go this far, but I have such respect for marriage, I won't let him go any farther. Sin has absolutely no respect for a spouse, for children, for God, for anything. It is a cruel enemy, and it has as its ultimate design our destruction. That's the goal. And so temptation is always dangerous because sin is always brutal. John Owen, in one of my all-time favorite books, So sin will not only be striving, acting, rebelling, troubling, disquieting, but if left alone, if not continually mortified, it will bring forth great, cursed, scandalous, soul-destroying sins. And then Owen says, sin always aims at the utmost. Every time it rises up to tempt or entice, might it have its own course, it would go to the utmost sin in that kind. So every unclean thought or glance would be adultery, if it could. Every covetous desire would be oppression. Every thought of unbelief would be atheism, might it grow to its head. Sin is absolutely brutal, and so you have to take temptation seriously. Sin is also subtle. Small sins, and understand, I put that in quote marks, small sins. When we talk about small sins, if you're the one talking about committing small sins, you're in trouble. Because small sins may seem inconsequential, but it's their very subtlety that makes them so dangerous. Sin always leads to more sin. And what we think is a small sin somehow will prevent or curb us from committing a greater sin is actually complete folly because, quote, smaller sins lead to bigger sins. Why? Because sin is deceitful. Sin is deceitful. The writer to the Hebrews actually says, see to it, brethren, that there not be any one of you a heart of unbelief which falls away from the living God, being hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. Sin is always a deceiver. Paul can talk in Ephesians 4 about the deceitfulness of lust or lust's deceits. Sin always, in a sense, promises something. So the temptation is the advertisement, and it promises happiness, it promises reward, it's the great whisperer, if you will, that, you know what, you really are worth it. It offers happiness. It offers relief. It offers popularity. It offers intoxication. It offers respite from our problems. It offers self-satisfaction, self-aggrandizement, sense of power or authority. But notice this, sin is always a great advertiser, but it is always a greater liar. Sin never delivers. And what we find in the end is that we've bit in to the bait only to find ourselves now ensnared in a way that we were not bargaining for. Number three, sin is idolatry. The issue of sin is not just simply a matter of who we will believe, but it's also a matter of who we will serve. Sin actually promises, as it were, great delight if we simply serve it. Sin offers us something if we will just yield to it. What sin is asking for in a real sense is not just to be believed that I'll make you happy, but sin is actually just saying, if you serve me, I'll make you happy. If you serve me, what you'll find is actually great freedom in that service. But the idolatry, the service of sin, is not freedom, it's bondage. Have you ever noticed this is exactly the way that sin works? When sin initially presents itself to us, it never says, I want to be an idol that destroys your life. It says, I want to bring you freedom. I want to give you what you really want. And our own darkened, fallen hearts think, well, I've got a right to that. I've got a right to have that kind of happiness. And then we find out that the supposed freedom is nothing but bondage and servitude. And so, have you ever noticed that you fight a temptation, fight a temptation, and the minute that you give in to a temptation, is it then easier or harder to give in next time. It's easier. Now you'd think logically it'd be harder because you think to yourself, well if you fail, you fall into temptation, you realize what's happened, you realize how you've displeased God, you realize the weight of the conscience and the guilt and all of that, and you take all of that and you would think, I gave in now, I'm not going to do that anymore. But the problem is, is that once an idol begins to erect itself in our hearts, it becomes something that we now are in bondage to, to serve. So the next temptation comes, and it's not easier to actually say no, it's easier to say yes. That's the way that it works. And in fact, I could guarantee you that there are many in this room who are sitting here today and they can look back at things in their life and they could say, you know what? I remember a time in my life where I would have never done such and such a thing. I would have never committed such and such a sin. And yet through a series of small compromises, I'm now brought to a place where this is a part of my life and I hate it. Once sin begins to erect itself as an idol in our hearts, we begin to realize that our servitude to that idol is nothing less than our bondage, and when that idol says you need to jump, we ask how high, and when that idol says fall down and worship me, we say for how long. That's how it works. When you actually replace what only and rightfully belongs to God with an idol, you have elevated something that God should be the only one in that place. You've now elevated that thing and now it begins to sink its roots deeper and deeper and deeper. Now, Sin is idolatry does not happen immediately, typically. It often happens by making a series of bad decisions. A series of compromises. I want you to think with me about King David. You remember when he was on the run from Saul. This was before David had been enthroned as king over Israel. And there he is in the wilderness and Saul is after him. Does David know that he's going to become king? Yes. Does he know that Saul is actually an evil man in disobedience to the will of the Lord? Yes. So David and his men are hiding out deep in the recesses of a cave. And you'll remember Saul goes, Saul picks that cave. I don't know how many caves there are in the, in the desert of in Getty, but let's just say there's more than one. There's probably dozens, if not hundreds of caves, right? And here's Saul, and Saul picks one cave to relieve himself, and he goes into that cave, and all of a sudden, David's mighty men are telling him, look at this, look at this. You talk about providence. Out of all of the caves in this wilderness, he picks this one to relieve himself. You know what this is, David? This is God opening the door for you to take what's rightfully yours. And David said, I can't raise my hand against God's anointed. His principle overrode apparent providential open door. Right? Principle, don't lift my hand against God's anointed. That's true, that's sure, that's steadfast. I know that. This, I don't know what this is. But David makes a decision to go and to cut the hem of Saul's garment while Saul is doing his business. He cuts the edge of Saul's garment, Saul goes on his way, David actually cries out, shows Saul from a distance the corner of that garment, and yet the Bible tells us that David's conscience smote him. And you think to yourself, you know, come on, David, get over it. You could have actually killed him. You didn't. You did. I mean, far, far, far, far, far, far less infraction than actually killing the king. All you did was ruin his clothes. He's got lots of robes. He's the king. Come on, David. And David knew that even in doing that act, he had violated the will of God, and his conscience was so sensitive that his conscience bothered him for that very small infraction. Now, you fast forward 20 years, and David is on the roof when the kings are out to war. It was springtime. David should have been out with his troops, and instead, he was where he should not have been. And as he is up on his roof, he sees this beautiful woman bathing, he inquires about her. You have to understand that throughout this temptation, God gave David multiple opportunities to stop and to say, what am I doing? He gave David multiple opportunities to stop and to be able to say like Joseph, how could I commit this great evil against God? And instead he says, takes a second look, who is it? The servant says that's Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah. You know what God's doing? God in His kindness is saying, David, you took a second look, that's bad enough, but now you need to hear this. That's the wife of Uriah. That is the wife. Stop right there. David should have known. God has commanded, thou shall not commit adultery. I'm not going to look on another man's wife. I'm not going to steal another man's wife. But God throws another obstacle down. The wife of Uriah. Uriah, one of his most loyal soldiers. Bring her to me. Let me just ask you a simple question. How can the man whose conscience smote him for cutting off the hem of Saul's garment now be the same man who says, bring me the wife of Uriah? David has relations with her. And he breaks the seventh commandment. She sends word, I'm pregnant. What is God doing? David, you got caught. David, this is the time, confess, turn from your adultery, David. David says, send message to Joab, send Uriah back. And so David says, Uriah, you get a pass. There, there, enjoy a night with your wife. David's servants come back the next morning and they say, you know what that guy did? He slept on his front porch. David says, why in the world would you sleep on your front porch? He says, how in the world could I go into a comfortable home and sleep in my bed and have intimacy with my wife when my men are out there in the field suffering? And so David now, instead of going, oh, even as Judah said to Tamar, your righteousness is greater than mine. He says, bring him over to my house tonight and David gets him drunk. thinking that in his drunkenness, then he will actually then, with lack of judgment, go and do what his flesh is enticing him to do. And yet again, Uriah does not do it, and so then David, with his own hand, sends a note to Joab and says, rush up to the wall, and then make sure Joab is in the front line, and then you pull back, and when you pull back, make sure, make sure that Uriah gets it. So I have a question for you. How could the man whose conscience smote him when he cut off the corner of Saul's garment be the same man that says, I know how I'll take care of this sin. I'll have Uriah killed. Faithful, loyal, courageous Uriah. Of course, Joab, the blind loyalty fulfills the awful, awful deed. You know what the story of David should remind every single one of us, and that is this. There's not a single person in this room that is exempt from sin, nor is there a single person in this room exempt from a certain sin becoming an idol that becomes a soul. controlling, soul-dominating, soul-destroying sin in your life. If you think somehow you're exempt, you don't know yourself. You don't know the nature of your own heart, and you don't know sin. You have to understand something. This is not about us saying to one another, I don't trust you. What it's a matter of saying is, I don't trust the combination of human nature brought together with temptation. That's what I don't trust. I don't trust it. Period. No matter how wonderful you are, no matter how nice you are, no matter how godly you are, matter. You know what? You never trust human nature, human nature combined with temptation. Only a fool trusts that a person somehow is going to be strong enough to face that temptation. Idolatry is not merely one sin among many, but the epitome of all sin, the disobedience that denies God his rightful place over his creation and over our lives, Michael Williams. Number four, sin perverts and fractures relationships and alienates us from God and from one another. Now, we're going to see this in a couple of weeks. God's going to confront the man. He's got a great answer. Well, the woman, you gave me. Isn't that terrible? Okay, blame the woman, but then, then actually, ultimately blame who? God. Well, then he goes to the woman, and of course, the woman now says, well, it was that rotten snake. Well, here's the fact, is that the minute that they ate it, and they thought that they were gonna get this wisdom that was gonna make them like God, their eyes were opened, and then they had the knowledge of good and evil, but not in exactly the way that they thought. And in fact, the knowledge of good and evil actually disintegrated their own original righteousness and integrity, and showed them the shame and condemnation of God's judgment against that sin. So they end up covering themselves, and then they begin those that begin blaming each other for their sin. Sin always disrupts and perverts relationships. Sin doesn't happen in a vacuum that only affects you. One of the biggest lies Satan tells is you can engage in this sin and you're not hurting anybody but yourself. Lie. Lie. It is a flat-out lie from the pit. You cannot, you cannot live a life of sin and yield yourself and indulge in sin and think that somehow this is not going to affect anybody. You cannot think that it's okay to erect idols in your own heart, serve those idols and it not affect anybody. It will affect your spouse, it will affect your children, it will affect your church family, it will affect your witness, it will have a ripple effect. And you go, well, I don't see how. Nobody knows. There was another guy that thought the same thing. His name was Akin. He thought that what he did, he had done in secret. And it ended up having an effect upon the Israelites. So the husband who has ESPN as his idol and thinks, well, I need my time. I need my personal daddy time. Be a man. Good grief. You erect an idol and, well, I need to unwind and play four hours of video games at night. While your wife, who's all day long taking care of the kids, now is taking care of them more by feeding them and bathing them and getting them ready for bed, while you're pretending to shoot terrorists. Grow up! There's nothing manly about that. In fact, that sounds to me to be incredibly stupid and immature. Are you 12? Idols that cause you to neglect your family are idols that will affect your family. Make no mistake about it. You go, well, you know what? Nobody knows what goes on between me and my computer except me and of course the federal government. Pornography will affect your relationship with your wife, period. It doesn't help, it destroys, period. Well, I could go on picking on other sins, but make no mistake about it, there is not any sin that does not affect the people around us. Number five, and this is short, human beings by nature are fig leaf wearers. Fig leaf wearers. You have inherited from your first father, Adam, part of your DNA, this desire to be a fig leaf designer, and a fig leaf model. It's in your DNA, it's in my DNA. Instead of actually dealing with our sins, what do we do? We try to actually cover up by our own efforts. We have our own deflective mechanisms. We have our own self-justifying mechanisms. We have our own blame-shifting mechanisms. We have our own defense mechanisms. All of those fig leaf coverings are designed to actually make me feel like I'm okay instead of actually dealing with the sin. Have you ever noticed how quickly we justify our sins? Here's a common fig leaf. If she didn't make me so mad, I wouldn't get so angry and use bad language. Fig leaf, alert. The fig leaf is nothing more than deflecting the real culprit who is the angry person who cannot control his own tongue. If there weren't so many people from California driving on the roads, I'd be perfectly fine out there. You know, you can make mistakes or you can make excuses all day long and you can shift blame all day long. But at the end of the day, your sin is your sin. Period. Doesn't matter about who your mommy and daddy were. Doesn't matter what your spouse does or doesn't do. Doesn't matter whether your kids are angels or devils. Doesn't matter whether you work for the nicest guy on the planet or the most ruthless dictator on the planet. At the end of the day, our sins are our sins. and they come out of our heart and they come out of our mouth and we own them completely or else we make fig leaves that try to disguise and deflect and shift the blame. Some of you are good at it. Hey, we're all good at it, aren't we? Aren't we? For years, for years. I used to say, none of my other kids make me so upset as this one. Do the logic. Do the math. It's him. It can't be me. Why? Why can't it be me? Well, because no one else makes me feel like this. No one else provokes me. No one else. It's me. It's me. It's me. I'm the villain. I'm the culprit. I am the criminal. So are you. So are you. I hope you understand there is absolutely no way to rightly estimate the tragedy of the fall. Those real simple words. She took an eight, gave it to her husband. He ate. There's absolutely no way to properly evaluate the significance of those words. There's actually no way to gauge the effects that this has had on you and on me. But understand, every sinful thought, every wicked deed, every evil word comes from a heart that died in that revolt in the garden temple. And so the hymn writer trying to help us understand says this, you who think of sin but lightly, nor suppose the evil great, Here may view its nature rightly, here its guilt may estimate. Mark the sacrifice appointed, see who bears the awful load. It's the Word, the Lord's anointed, Son of Man, Son of God. You want to get a sense, you want to begin to get a glimmer of the magnitude and the sinfulness of sin, you don't look inside, you look at the cross. That's what God did to remedy our sin. And if our sin weren't as heinous and wicked as it is, God would not have sent his only begotten son into this world to die as a propitiation for our sins. And so the only hope for us as sinners in Adam, sinners by nature and sinners by choice, is to run to Jesus Christ. The only hope for an idolater to be free from his idols is actually to turn to Jesus Christ. The only hope for an unbeliever to turn from their unbelief and to become a person of faith is to turn to the Lord Jesus Christ. The only hope for a deceived person to be liberated from their deception is the light of the world, Jesus Christ. He was crucified for sinners, He was raised and He conquered sin and death. That's our only hope. What if you've embraced Jesus as your hope, and you face a battle every day? You face a busy devil, a world full of temptation, and the power of indwelling sin. Read John Owen, Sin and Temptation. It will do you a world of good. Owen actually is writing in the 1660s. And he says, in my day, temptations are all around. Everywhere you look, there's temptation. This world is full of temptations. And we long for the good old days. busy day devil, a world full of temptation, and the power of indwelling sin. Let me remind you, believer, that you have a merciful and faithful high priest who has been tempted in all ways like we are, without sin, and he's able to come to our aid. What does that aid look like? Praying that we not enter into temptation. Have you ever thought about that petition in the Lord's Prayer? Lead us not into temptation. It's not deliver us once we get there. It's lead us not into temptation, so praying that we don't enter into temptation. Only a fool thinks he's ready to face temptation. Being alert to the strategies of the devil, not giving him a foothold. Being humble, realizing that in ourselves, we don't have the strength to fight temptation. John Owen says, well, until we're tempted, we think we live in our own strength. But only until we're tempted. In temptation, run to the Savior, not to the sin. Cry out for deliverance, act in faith. Our high priest is in fact our deliverer and our rescuer, but do not do this. Enter into temptation. Get a little closer and a little closer and a little closer, and then with your toes dangling over the edge, looking into that canyon of sin, then start to say, oh Lord, now I really need your help. If you've been willing to go and dangle your toes over for a while, you're not actually all that interested in the Savior's help. Sin is powerful. Sin is destructive. But we have one who has conquered it on the cross and through the empty tomb. And may we actually learn more and more what it is to live in his victory, embracing the truth of God and rejecting the lies the enemy here is the glorious good news one of these days satan will be forever cast into the lake of fire forever and one day the ransomed Church of God will be saved to sin no more until then Fight on in faith. We are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. Let's pray. Father, what a battle, and yet we thank you that the Lord Jesus has overcome, He's triumphed, He's won the war for us, and we pray that we would We would fight these daily skirmishes in the power of His might. We pray that You would help us not to be self-deceived. We pray that You would help us not to make peace treaties with temptation or indwelling sin. We pray that You'd help us to truly fight the good fight. Help us to hate our sin and love the Savior. Help us to treasure and value the gospel so that we devalue the sins of the world, and the flesh, and the devil. Help us, Father. Forgive us of our sins, for they are many, and help us to overcome Him through the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony. Amen. We hope you've enjoyed this message from Grace Community Church in Minden, Nevada. To receive a copy of this or other messages, call us at area code 775-782-6516 or visit our website gracenevada.com.