you this morning. We're in the book of James. James chapter 1, picking up where we left off last Lord's Day. James chapter 1 and verse 13. We'll read it down to verse 16 of this chapter. And we're thinking today about temptation. James chapter 1, beginning our reading together in verse 13. James writes, 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, my beloved brethren." And we trust the Lord will bless the reading of his precious word this morning. Well, our text this morning turns our minds toward the matter of temptation. So far James has been talking about trials and all trials have within them the element of temptation and all temptations have within them an element of trial. And the temptation in trial is really to rely on self, to fall back on your own thinking, and your own resource, and your own instincts, and your own wisdom. Maybe to try and manipulate circumstance, or to seek advantage in a situation, or to complain against God, or to compromise for the sake of peace or convenience. Who knows, there could be any amount of temptations that will come our way as a consequence of trial. Trials are real and temptations are real, but there is a difference between the two. Trials are sent by God to make the Christian better, to bring out the best in us. But temptations come by means of Satan in the flesh and are always there to expose the worst in us. For the Christian, temptation is a very real part of our lives. Before I was a Christian, you know, temptation wasn't a big deal to me, to be honest with you. I tried my best to get away with as much as I possibly could. But whenever I became a Christian, suddenly my conscience was ignited. And things that I would have done before were now a problem to me. And I was feeling guilty of even considering the possibility of doing some of those things. And that's how it is if you're a true believer. Temptation suddenly becomes something very much alive in your lives. And that's where James begins. He speaks of the reality of temptation. He says, let no man say, notice, when he is tempted. He doesn't say let no man say if he is tempted. He says, let no man say when he is tempted. You see, temptation for the believer is not a matter of if, but it's a matter of when. One writer puts it this way, Satan tests God's people by manipulating circumstances within the limits that God allows him in an attempt to make them desert God's will. And that's the truth. Let's look for a moment at the book of Job, if you will, and Job chapter 1. This is a wonderful book, and the will of God someday will go through the whole book of Job. You know, I used to not like the book of Job. I thought it was a little bit repetitive and somewhat tedious in its discourse, but once I got into it and studied it, I found actually it's a wonderful, wonderful book of the Word of God. And Job chapter 1. And we read in verse 12, that the Lord said unto Satan, concerning Job, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power, only upon himself put not forth thy hand. So Satan went from the presence of the Lord. And he goes out to tempt and to try Job. His purpose is to have Job curse God. And if you go down the next chapter to verse 6, and the Lord again says unto Satan, Behold, he is in thine hand, but save his life. You see, there's limitations to what Satan can do. God puts boundaries upon what Satan can do. And the objective here was, from God's point of view, to take Job through trials. But from Satan's point of view, it was to cause Job to curse God. It was to tempt Job in the midst of those trials. And so every one of us will face trials. Every one of us must face temptations. There's not a one in this room, not a single person you can look at, beside you, in front of you, or behind you, that has never been tempted to sin. No one can say, you know, I've never been tempted to think the wrong thing, or to say the wrong thing, or to have the wrong attitude, or to commit some deed or other. You know, on the opposite side of that, sometimes the devil convinces us that we're the only ones who struggle with a particular sin. And sometimes we bear these trials alone, we bear these temptations alone, and we think, well, everybody else in church is living above this, and I'm the only person who's tempted by it. You know, you'd be surprised by the extent and to the degree that Christian people are tempted. We're all tempted. envy, greed, malice, lust, dishonesty, covetousness, unrighteous anger, complaining, gossip, hatred, strife, divisiveness, adultery, fornication, drunkenness. You could name a whole host of sins and I guarantee you there are people in this congregation who have struggled with some of those temptations. You know, if we could see inside one another's hearts, if we could see and read one another's minds, you know, we might be shocked by what's going on in there sometimes. You see, we come to church and we're all spruced up, aren't we? We've got a shower in the morning, our hair is combed and brushed and we're looking our best, we put our nice clothes on and we come along and we sit in the pew and we look like butter wouldn't melt. But listen, All of that is a facade. The reality is that we're all struggling with the same problems. We're all struggling with the same trials. And if you could see what was going on, you would be surprised. You see, temptations are as diverse as the people they affect. But temptation is common to all. There's a little chat room that I access every now and then on the internet. It's a chat room for believers. It's for Baptist churches, Baptist believers, people who go to Baptist churches. And, you know, it's interesting. Sometimes I go on there and I'll have a look at some of the chats every now and then. I'll take part. in one or two, but a while back they had this question asked, which do you have a desire for from time to time, was the question, which do you have a desire for from time to time, and it listed certain sins. Now the list was by no means comprehensive. It didn't cover every single sin that ever happened for all time. But they had certain sins that I guess would be common sins, things that people would struggle with. And so there are things like smoking, and gambling, and stealing, and recreational drug use, and watching pornography, and gluttony, and so on. Now it didn't ask, which of these have you done? It wasn't asking. That wasn't the question. The question wasn't, which of these are you doing? It was, which of these are you tempted to do? Which of these do you desire to do? And when people responded, what was interesting was, every type of sin, every single sin, was acknowledged by somebody, somewhere, under the cover of anonymity, as a temptation. So 5% of the people in that chat room said they were tempted by same-sex attraction. 25% said they were tempted to gamble. 50% said they were tempted by pornography. Now, these are not people who are out in the world. These are not the godless we're talking about. We're not talking about people who are living reprobate lives. We're talking about people who are in a church just like this church, conservative Christians, people who hold to the Baptist faith and who believe in the Baptist distinctives and who consider themselves to be fundamental Christians in some sense. And you might be surprised by those results. Well, here's another statistic for you. 100% of Christians surveyed were discovered to be human. Let that sink in. In other words, every man, every woman, every child, every one of us has to admit it, whether we like it or not, that we all have the same propensity for sin, and we're all tempted to sin. And James recognizes that. He speaks of the reality of temptation. Let no man say when he is tempted. But then I want to bring you to verse 13 again and to think about the responsibility in temptation. He says, Look at this, I am tempted of God. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin, and sin when it is finished bringeth forth death. So let's stop there for a moment. I wonder, have you ever heard someone say this when they sin? Well, the devil made me do it. Did you ever hear somebody say that? The devil made me do it. My goodness, the devil gets blamed for a lot of things that really weren't his fault at all. We give him way too much credit, I think, most of the time. Now, there's no question the devil is a tempter. The Bible talks about him being a tempter. It uses that title for him. It calls him the tempter. But the idea that every sin you ever commit, which is a consequence of satanic temptation, is simply not realistic. You see, when it comes to the matter of sin, very often we always look for somebody else to blame. We always look for somebody else to put the fault on, to pin the fault on. And this tendency is as old as time. Let's go back to the very beginning, to Genesis chapter 3, and let's look at the events surrounding the fall. Right to the very beginning of time, to our first parents, to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. And let's watch this temptation unfold. And more importantly, let's watch the aftermath of this temptation. Chapter 3, verse 1, Now the serpent, was more subtle than any beast of the field, which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, You shall not eat of every tree of the garden. And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, You shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. Eve added to the Word of God there. God said nothing about touching the tree. They could have stroked that tree all day long and no harm would have come of them. But that wasn't the problem. The problem was in the eating of the fruit of the tree. And then the serpent, he denies the Word of God. The serpent says unto the woman, you shall not surely die. Well, God said, you shall surely die. and he says for god doth know that in the day you eat thereof then your eyes shall be open and you shall be as gods knowing good and evil he says god is holding out on you you could be an independent god in your own right and when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was pleasant to the eyes and a tree to be desired to make one wise she took of the fruit thereof and did eat and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. Now, this is the critical passage as far as we're concerned. And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God, amongst the trees of the garden. And the Lord God called on to Adam and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. And he said, Who told thee that I was naked? Hath thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? Now, of course, God knew all of this. This was not because God was in the dark, but because Adam was in the dark, and the Lord wanted him to realize his sin. And the man said, now notice what he says, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me and I did eat. You see what happened? There was a transferal of guilt and blame. You know, here's Adam and he blames Eve. He blames his wife. And here comes Eve and she blames the serpent. You know, Adam and Eve would have sat very well in today's culture because, you know, no matter what happens in life, it seems it's always somebody else's fault. Somebody else has to pay for it. Somebody else is to blame. We live in a culture of blame. You know, we have the idea that somebody somewhere must have tripped us up. Somebody caused us to fall. Somebody created the problem. So we're basically culturally disposed to blame your father. You know, if you go to a counselor today, many of them will talk to you about your mother and your father. And then they'll say, well, all of your problems go back to your upbringing. It's your father's fault. It's very rarely the mother's fault, but it might be the mother's fault. They might say, it's your mother's fault. And they blame it on your parents, or they'll blame it on your siblings, or they'll blame it on your schooling, or they'll blame it on your teachers, or they'll blame it on the government, or they blame it on the church, or they blame it on somebody else. You can blame anyone, but you never bear the blame yourself. It's never to be your fault. You mustn't own the blame. You drive around a sharp corner and you came off the road. Well, whose fault was that? Well, that was the highway agency. They should have made a shallower bend. They should have had better signage on the road. That's their fault. Or you're burnt in the mouth because you took a hot coffee in a restaurant. Whose fault is that? Not your fault, it's the fault of the restaurant. They shouldn't have boiled your water. They shouldn't have gave you such a hot drink. Why is it not the consumer's fault? Why is he not responsible or she not responsible as an adult to think to themselves, this is a hot drink, perhaps I should wait a while before consuming it. But believe it or not, people have sued restaurants for giving them coffee that was too hot. You know, you get a shock trying to fix an electrical item, and the item is plugged in, and you get the shock, and you say, well, that's not my fault, there was no word of warning on it. You know, they have the most basic words of warning now on almost everything. It's almost like you go to a swimming pool, and it says, danger, you might drown. Why is that? Because everybody is very concerned that they don't get blamed for things that other people do. And, you know, if you have an accident at work, if you fall down some stairs, if you slip on the floor, well, we all know that, lads, don't we? Injury lawyers for you. You phone them up and they will take care of a claim and they'll make sure that you get paid and somebody else gets the blame for you tripping up or you falling. You remember a few years ago, not long after we arrived, my wife tripped up. Well, she didn't trip up. I think she just fell in Liverpool Airport in the car park. And I looked around and there was nothing she could have tripped over. There was no reason for her falling. You know, she just fell. for her own reason, because she likes that kind of thing. And so, anyway, she fell over and broke her arm. And the number of people who said, well, did you think to sue them? Sue who? For what? I'm supposed to go back and sue the airport authorities. because my wife tripped up. And the idea was, well, somebody should be to blame. Well, sorry, but my wife was to blame. She tripped up. She fell over her feet or whatever she did to hurt herself on that day. It wasn't the responsibility of anybody in the airport. It wasn't like there was a pothole in the ground. It wasn't like there was something sticking out that wasn't seen. She just fell. And it was an accident. And we had to accept the responsibility for that accident. But listen, that's where we're at today. Everybody wants to blame everyone else. for whatever comes their way, and particularly if something bad happens as a consequence of their own decisions. So, if you look at this again in Genesis chapter 3, notice that Adam technically doesn't blame his wife as such, but he blames God. He says, The woman whom thou gavest to me. God comes into the garden and he says, Who told you you were naked? Who informed you of this? Have you eaten of the tree? He goes, no, no, no, no. He says, the woman, the woman that you gave me, who's he blaming? He's blaming God. He said, you're responsible for this. Not me. This is not my fault. This is your fault. You're the one who's out of line. And people do that. When sin enters their lives, they point their finger heavenward, and they say, well, it's God's fault. How so? How can that be? Well, God created us. God decreed certain things. So God must have decreed sin, and God must have decreed evil, and God allowed me to be in this position where I was tempted in such a way as was impossible for me to resist. So God is responsible for the sin, and He's responsible for the temptation. Does this kind of argument ring a bell with you? People blaming God for their own condition and their own sin. Is this not the very argument that is used today by the LGBT movement? God made me this way. I was born this way. There's no question we're all born with a sin nature. There's no doubt about that. But we cannot fall back on our sin nature at birth as a reason to excuse our actions after birth. Those are our decisions. Those are the things that we pursue. And so we can't say the devil made me do it, and we can't say God made me do it. You see, from the Garden of Eden to this present time, such is the human condition that we're always trying to shift the blame. We're always trying to make somebody else responsible. And you see that right here. Adam said, not guilty. The woman is to blame. In fact, you're to blame for giving me the woman. And the woman said, not me, it's not my fault, the serpent is to blame. And from that moment on, the serpent had no leg to stand on. You have to know your Bible for that joke. But you get the picture. There was blame transfer all the way down the line. And yet we have a sobering truth here, that in a moment of crisis, When things go wrong, when a man or a woman has a moral fault, or they commit a grievous sin, they not only seek to avoid personal blame, but many times they blame other people on their sin. You know, people commit adultery sometimes, they blame the innocent party. They say, well, I was in a loveless marriage, or my husband didn't give me enough attention, or my wife never looked at me, or whatever it is. Instead of saying, well, I'm at fault. I'm the one who sinned. I committed adultery. They try to shift the blame onto somebody else and say, well, that person created this situation. And that's where we're at. And maybe that's where you're at this morning. Maybe in your life, you've got sin in your life and you're thinking, well, it's not really me. It's her. It's not really me. It's him. It's not really me. It's God. Well, James gives us two good reasons here why God cannot be responsible for our sins. So let's go back to James chapter one for a moment. And the first of these reasons we find in verse 13. It says, Let's stop there. Here's the first reason you can't blame God. You can't blame God because it's not possible for God to tempt you because God is holy. It's impossible for God, a holy God, to tempt you. It says here that God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man. He cannot be tempted with evil. The Greek word that James uses here is a very unusual word. It's used only here and nowhere else in the New Testament. And it means that God is not liable to temptation. He's impeccable in his character. He's unversed in sin. God has no experience of sin. He's entirely free from sin. So God's perfect holiness makes him beyond temptation, beyond the possibility of tempting someone so that he can, that person can never be defiled and God himself could never be defiled. So incidentally, it's one of the proofs of the deity of Christ. You know, the Lord Jesus says this, the prince of this world cometh, speaking of Satan, and he findeth nothing in me. He says, in other words, he says the devil's going to come and tempt me, but there's nothing in me to respond to that temptation. I'm not liable to temptation. So there's the first reason that God couldn't possibly be responsible for your sin. Because God is holy and it's not possible for God to tempt you. Secondly, it's not possible because God is good. Look what it says at the end of that verse. You see what James is saying here? He's saying don't make the mistake of blaming God on your sin. Don't make the mistake of blaming God on your failure. Don't make the mistake of blaming God on your backsliding. God may call you to endure trials, but God will never entice you to sin in those trials. So what then is the source of temptation in us? Well, it's right there in verse 14. But every man is tempted when, when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed. Now I want you to notice the word lust. It means any kind of illicit desire. Not necessarily sexual desire, although that would be part of it, but more than that, any kind of illicit desire. It's the strong desire of the human heart to satisfy our own flesh, to do what pleases us. That's sin. To do that which is selfish and is purposed for no other reason than to satisfy our own selfish and sinful desires. Now the normal desires of life were given to us by God and without them we couldn't function. Unless we felt hunger, we would never eat. Unless we felt thirst, we would never drink. Unless we felt fatigue, the body would never rest. You know, the sexual drive is a normal desire given to us without God. Without it, the human race could not procreate. But the problem comes when we want to satisfy our desires outside the parameters of God's will. So eating is normal, but gluttony is sin. Sleeping is essential, but laziness is sin. You know, the sexual drive is normal. The Bible says marriage is honorable in all, and the marriage bed undefiled. But whoremongers and adulterers God will judge. So people who behave sexually, outside of marriage go into the arena of sin. But let's not forget what James is about here. What he's really saying is, and this is what he's anxious to say, is that we don't defend ourselves when we sin. We don't put up barriers. We don't hide, as Adam did. And we certainly don't throw the blame for our sin and our failure upon the Lord, or upon Satan, or upon other people. In other words, we've got to acknowledge our own sin. Notice what he says here. Every man is tempted when he is, notice, drawn away, there's the phrase, of his own lust, and enticed, there's another word. He's now using a fishing analogy. He's taking a lesson from the world of angling. And the Greek word there, entice, means to bait something, so as to deceive. To bait something, so as to deceive. So in fishing, an angler uses worms, or he uses maggots, or flies, or spinners, or lures, or something to attract the attention of the poor fish, who's going about his business. He's doing whatever fish do there under the water. He's no intention of being your supper for that evening. But suddenly he sees this great big juicy worm dangling before him. Or he sees this smaller fish as he views it going through the water not realizing that it's a spinner and not realizing that it's a lure. And so the fish leaves his place of safety and he launches his jaws onto the end of that delicious appetizer, only to find out that he's going to be the meal for the night. That's the idea that James has. Now I know this is never going to be of any use to you, but I'm going to tell you about it anyway. How to catch a polar bear. You never know. There could be a day, with global warming, climate change and all that, that a polar bear comes wandering three points past. And you might say, how are we going to catch this bear? This is what the Eskimos do, and I learned this in Alaska. Eskimos take a razor blade and they open up a little tract in the snow and they put the razor blade into the snow and then they cover it up so as the blade is just sitting upright. And then they cover a little bit of snow over it so as it can't be seen. And then they take a little bit of blood, seal blood, and they pour the blood over the little snow mine that they've made. And the polar bear comes along and he sees the blood. And polar bears like blood. So he starts to lick the blood. And as he's licking the blood. Your faces are a picture I wish I could. Anyway as he licks the blood you know what happens. The ice begins to melt and eventually he starts rubbing his tongue along the length of the razor blade. This consequently causes him to bleed. Now he's even more excited because he's got more blood. And so what does he do? He licks even harder. And the harder he licks, the weaker he becomes. Because all along he is drinking his own life source until he dies. What has the Eskimo done there? He laid out a bait. He enticed the polar bear. He brought that bear to the point of death. Now notice the progression here. It says every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and he is enticed. And then when lust hath hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin, and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." You see, every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust, of his own desire, of his own will, of his own emotion. He's enticed. That's the deceit, that's the bait that's been laid out there. His intellect is thinking this is a good thing. But even at this point, he hasn't necessarily committed a sin. It's not a sin to be tempted. It's not a sin to be enticed. It's not a sin to have a desire. But watch what happens. He goes beyond that desire and says, Then when lust hath conceived, he bringeth forth sin. That's the will. James is using here the analogy of a birth. The temptation is given away to participation. You know, before a birth occurs, impregnation must first occur. In the words of John Phillips, the father of sin is the devil and the mother of sin is lust. Well, sin is the offspring of unchecked temptation. Again, as another writer puts it, it takes two to make a successful temptation and you're one of the two. So the reality is that we have to own our sin. We have to admit, I've done wrong. We have to be willing to look at the Lord and say, well I'm not going to blame you God, and I'm not going to blame my wife, and I'm not going to blame my husband, I'm not going to blame the school teacher, I'm not going to blame the pastor or the Sunday school teacher, I'm not going to blame the television show I watched, I'm not going to blame anything or anyone other than myself. It's my sin and I take responsibility for it. Now watch the repercussion of sin. Verse 15, it says, And then, when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin, and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. Sin always leads to death. That's what God told our first parents. The day you eat of that tree, you'll surely die. And sin will ultimately lead us to death if we continue in it. We're cursed as a race because of it. You say, well, how can we handle temptation then? Well, we do what Jesus did. Remember when Jesus was tempted by the devil out in the wilderness? 40 days he had fasted and then he was tempted by Satan. How did he respond to those temptations? Every single temptation Each one that was geared for a particular element of human nature, whether it was the lust of the eye, or the pride of life, or the lust of the flesh, Jesus answered every one of them with, It is written. He went back to the Word of God, and he said, Devil, you know, I'm starving. The devil says, well, you go ahead and command it, and these rocks can be turned into bread, and you can eat and be food. And that must have been very tempting for the Lord, in one sense, on a human level. But he said, and it's written, Thou shalt not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. In other words, he went back to the Bible and he says, devil, as tempting as that is, there's a scripture here that says, I ought not to. And therefore I'm going to surrender to what God says and deny myself and deny you. That's how you overcome temptation. You see, it's a decision. It's a decision of the heart to overcome temptation. Three times the Lord Jesus says, it is written. The Lord knew the Word of God and He used the Word of God. And He used it as a defense against temptation. Some of you will be familiar with the ministry of Leighton Kelly in Dublin. We've had him here. missions conference in the past and he spoke about the work of the New Hope residential home just outside of Talla and there of course they minister to men who have come through addiction or who have addictions all kinds of addictions not just drug addiction but other addictions as well and it's a great success story many many men have been saved going through that home and have gone on to live godly lives and have lived useful lives in society. When they began that ministry, they established 10 principles that you should live by when you come into that home, when you come into the meetings that they had on a Friday night for those who were addicts. I want you to think about some of these, not all of them, but here's just four of those principles. The very first one I love, it says, if God is against it, so am I. I love that principle. It's not hard, is it? God's against it, I'm against it. God's for it, I'm for it. So you get tempted by your flesh, and you think to yourself, well, is God for this action? Or is he against it? You know, I'm a married man, I see a beautiful woman, I find my heart wandering. Then what do I do? I check it, and I say, is God for this, or is he against it? If God's against it, I'm against it. Then he says, every sin has its origin in your heart, but before you ever did it, you thought about it. And that's true also. Very, very few sins, if any sins, occur on impulse, immediate impulse. Most sins are considered. Here's the way this works. It's temptation, meditation, participation. You take a moment to think about it. And in that moment, you have to decide whether you're going to bow to it or you're going to resist it. The third little principle they have is this. It's not possible to fight a fleshly appetite by indulging it. It's not possible to fight a fleshly appetite by indulging it. So here's the thing. If I'm trying to diet, what do you do? You say, oh, I've got this plan, that plan. Read my lips. Stop eating so much. That's how you diet. Stop eating so much. In other words, you don't feed your hunger. You don't feed your desire. You don't feed your appetite. That's the third thing. And the fourth thing that they share in that group is that small compromises lead to great disasters. Little sins lead to big sins. And that's true also. And that's why D.L. Moody, the great evangelist, wrote in the fly leaf of his Bible, this book will keep me from sin. and sin will keep me from this book. He understood the place of the word of God in fighting sins. My friends, I want you to think about this as we close this morning. When we fall, or when we fail, or when we sin, or if we backslide, it's nobody's fault but our own. Do you realize that? You cannot blame someone else. It's your fault. You can't say, well, they did this in me and therefore I, no, no, no, that's not the way this thing works. See, sometimes people blame others for the way they're living. And they say, well, I'd be a Christian if it wasn't for such and such a thing. I would do this if they hadn't done that on me. How do you think that's going to stand at the judgment seat of Christ? How do you think it's going to stand to pit the wrong against you against the wrong, if you like, that was done to Jesus when He was nailed to the cross? How in the world are you going to justify rebellion or disobedience or resistance to the Word of God by pointing at somebody else and saying, well, it's their fault. I would have got baptized, but they didn't want me to. It's their fault. Think the Lord's going to accept that? Well, I would have joined the church, but this happened to me. Really? And God's going to accept that at the judgment seat of Christ, do you think? Think he's going to say, oh, right, okay, that seems reasonable. I sent my son to die for you. He bled on a cross called Calvary. But obviously what this person did against you far outweighs what Jesus did for you. And you're excused. Do you really see that scene unfolding in your mind? Listen to me. You're going to have to own your sin. You're going to have to own your rebellion. You're going to have to own your own wrong. You're going to have to admit your own waywardness. And that's what James is saying here. He says there's no excuses. There's no places to hide. You can't blame your neighbor. You can't blame your mother. You can't blame your husband. You can't blame the church. You can't blame your school. You can't blame me. It's your fault when you sin. If you're here this morning, you're not a Christian. You're not saved. Whose fault is that? He said, well, Pastor, I'm going to tell you now, I was brought up in this Christian home and my parents, blah, blah, blah. Oh, it's your father's fault. That's the reason you're not saved. Oh, it's your mother's fault. Oh, they drug me to church every Sunday and I do. Oh, that's the problem, you're not saved, is it? You're going to use them now and shift the blame on them. Well, nobody's ever explained to me. Well, let me explain it to you this morning. Here's the deal, if you're here this morning, you're not a Christian, you're a sinner before God. You'll die as a consequence of your sin, not only physically, but eternally. But Jesus came to die for you. He gave his life on Calvary's cross. And if you put your heart's trust in him, he's willing to pardon you of all your sin and to forgive you and to change your life now and forever. But when you get before God, you're not going to be able to point at somebody else and say, well, if it wasn't for those hypocrites in the church, if it wasn't for my upbringing, if it wasn't for what I saw in religion, if it wasn't for this and that. No, no, no, no. This is between you and God. And you'll answer for yourself. You say, well, you don't know the hard time I've been through, so now you're blaming God. God did it to you. That's why you're not seeing. Oh, God caused my wife to die, or God caused my child to die, or God gave somebody that I love a terrible illness, or God made my business go bust, or God did this, or God did that. Wait a minute, wait a minute. What does James say here? He says, your sin is yours. And you have to own it. Bear your own fault. Admit your own need. and seek his forgiveness. Maybe you're here as a Christian and your heart is cold and indifferent. Well, whose fault is that? People come and they say, well, I never got anything out of the message. Whose fault is that? The pastor, that's your fault. Really? Other people got something out of the message. Why would some people get something out of the message and you not get something out of the message? Could it be that the fault lies with you? That your heart isn't right? That you're not walking close to the Lord? That you're not surrendering to his word? Whose fault is it if you're cold? Whose fault is it if you're indifferent? Whose fault is it if you're walking far from God? Whose fault is it if sin has crept into your life? Whose fault is it if you don't have devotions every day? Whose fault is it if you're not praying Jesus you? Whose fault is it if you're missing meetings? Whose fault is your fault? It's your fault. Maybe you've struggled with temptation lately, and maybe you've even gave in to sin, and here's the thing, God didn't tempt you. The devil didn't make you do it. When it comes to explaining our sin, notice what James says in verse 16, do not err, my beloved brethren. He says, stop blaming everybody else. The fault lies with you. Own it. Admit it. Confess it. Forsake it. And God will bless you for it.