The title of this morning's sermon is Drawn Away by Temptation, Part Two. Drawn Away by Temptation, Part Two. Two weeks ago, we started discussing James 1, 14, which says in the middle of the verse, each one is tempted when he is drawn away. Actually, that's the verse, excuse me. Each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and a taste. You don't have to turn to James 1. But that's what James 1.14 says, each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. And a few weeks ago, we discussed how the word desires, what it means, and that God has given us desires, even some good desires, but our flesh tempts us to satisfy those desires in sinful ways. And then last week, we started focusing on the words, when he is drawn away. We focused on those words, when he is drawn away. And we discussed how this is one word in the Greek, and so to be clear, even though it's a few words in the English, depending on your translation of the Bible, when it says, when he is drawn away, that's one word in the Greek, and that word is exilco, that word is exilco, and that's the only place that it's used in scripture. So in James 1.14, when it says, each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed, when he is drawn away is one word in Greek, exilco, and that's the only place that it occurs And I put it on the bottom of your insert again, if you'd please briefly look there with me. If you're new to joining us, when you come in, please make sure you get a bulletin. We have lessons that you can fill in the blanks, and I'll have information on there for the sermon. And so if you look on the bottom of your insert, you'll see what I had there last week. The words, when he is drawn away, in James 1.14, or one word in Greek, exilko, and this is what that word means. It means to draw out, or it's a metaphor that's used in hunting, As animals are lured from their hiding place, so man is lured from the safety of self-restraint to sin. And in James 1.14, the language of the hunting is transferred to the seduction of a harlot. So as you can see by that definition of exilco, exilco is personifying or picturing temptation in two different ways. Temptation is being pictured or personified for us in two different ways. It's pictured as a hunter that's drawing away its prey, and we'll talk about this next week. And then second, temptation is being pictured as a harlot that's drawing away a man. And we started discussing this last week when we looked at Proverbs 7. We started looking at Proverbs 7 last week to see a tremendous picture of this. And some scholars or some commentators are convinced because of the dramatic similarities between Proverbs 7 and James 1.14 that when James wrote his epistles, specifically when he wrote verses 14 and 15, that he had Proverbs 7 in mind. Some people make that speculation, and as we saw during last week's sermon, there's a number of similarities between Proverbs 7 and James 1 14. We'll see more of those similarities this morning, and then more next week as well. Now as we look at Proverbs 7, I need you to keep in mind that this harlot personifies temptation. So even though it looks like the chapter is largely about sexual sin, and there definitely is some instruction or warnings there regarding sexual sin, We want to understand that this chapter is not just for people struggling with sexual sin or temptation. It's not just to discourage sexual temptation. If we can understand that the harlot represents temptation, which she does, then we see that this chapter has application for all of us because all of us experience what? All of us experience temptation. And so the way that the harlot pursues this young man is a tremendous picture of the way that temptation pursues us. And the way that the young man does not resist the harlot, is a tremendous picture of what not to do with temptation in terms of giving into it. This past week, I looked back on last Sunday's sermon, and there's something I realized that I wish I would have stressed more. So I had some regrets, you might say, regarding last Sunday's sermon. There's something that I wish I would have emphasized more fully, and I'd like to do that now, and that brings us to lesson one on our inserts. I wish I would have shared this with you last week, but all I can do is try to share that with you this week. Lesson one, part one, The harlot also represents our daily temptations. The harlot also represents our daily temptations. I wish I would have stressed that to you last week. It's easy to look at this chapter and believe that the harlot is only representing what we consider to be large, potentially life-ruining or life-threatening or life-changing or life-damaging sins. If you look at the end of verse 23, look at the end of verse 23, it says, he did not know it would cost his life. If you look at the end of verse 26, it says, all who were slain by her were strong men. And if you look at verse 27, it says that her house is the way to hell, descending to the chambers of death. And so when you see descriptions like this regarding this temptation, It's easy to think that this harlot must be representing the worst sins imaginable. She must be picturing or warning against murder or adultery or arson or the most terrible addictions. And probably we would say we don't struggle with those temptations or maybe some of us would even say we've never experienced any of those temptations to murder or commit some of those terrible things. So I want to be clear about two things. First, the harlot equally represents what we might consider to be smaller temptations, or those temptations that we face on a daily basis. This would be temptations to be impatient with our children, or temptations to lie, or temptations to waste money, or temptations to waste our time, or temptation to spend too much time on Facebook, or dishonor our parents, or neglect our children, or not love or cherish our wives if we're husbands, or not submit to or respect our husbands if we're wives. And so please don't just think of the harlot alluring you when it comes to the most terrible temptations. Think of the harlot alluring you when it comes to these smaller daily temptations as well. Now I also want to add that our homes are where we most often experience these smaller temptations. Our homes and with our families is where we most often experience these smaller temptations. It's been said, and I agree with this completely, that if you really want to know someone, who do you need to ask? That person's family. If you really wanna know what a man is like, his, well, I'm not inviting you to gossip, but I'm just saying, if you really wanna know, or who would most know or best know someone, that person's family, that person's spouse, that person's children or parents. Now, if you look at the definition of ex-el-co on the bottom of your insert, one more time, please, it says, you know, I need to do something real quick, I'm sorry, I've gotta move the fan back. It's gonna be blowing my papers. I thought I could make it through the sermon without doing that, but I can't. I was going to try to do it. So I think Steve Moeller, did you put the fan up there last week, Steve? Where's Steve? Did you put the fan up there last week? Okay, I'm the one who put it down there, so I should have followed your example. I'm actually the one who set it up closer this week, so you were right and I was wrong. Now, how did you know it was supposed to be on the step and not down lower like that? Have you preached before? Just joking. Okay, so anyway, anyone who sets the fan up for me in the future, you can follow Steve's example and put it up there. Now, sorry about that interruption to the sermon. What were we talking about? Okay, if you look at the definition of exilco on the bottom of your insert, it says, and please notice this, man is lured from the safety of self-restraint. Man is lured from the safety of self-restraint. And where are we most likely to be lured from the safety of self-restraint. Where are we most likely not to restrain ourselves? Or you could say, who sees the worst of us? At our homes. That's where we, our home is where we're most likely to let our guard down. Our home is where we're most at ease. Our home is where our self-restraint is least practiced at times. And it's unfortunate, but then who often ends up seeing the ugliest sides of us? It's sad, but it's often our families. Our families who should be receiving the best of us, unfortunately, will receive the worst of us because we have the safety of self-restraint at home, so we let our guard down. There are ways that we will act toward, or there's ways that we will act around our families that we would never think of acting outside our home that way, or say nothing about acting that way in the church. There are sides of us that we'll let our families see. There's ways that we'll talk to them or ways that we'll behave, sides of us that we'll let them see that we would never let anyone else see that. So our families often see us giving into temptation more than anyone else. And that's very sad, sad that our families who should get the best of us get the worst of us. We should be most on guard and most eager to practice self-restraint in the home. Now the young man in this chapter, he's wandering out in the street, so it looks like the analogy breaks down a little bit. I mean, he's not in his home when this is taking place, but just remember It's a metaphor so we can face just as much temptation when we're inside our homes. We can face just as much temptation when we're inside our homes. This is where the harlot is most comfortable luring us and therefore this is also where we most need to be on guard. And the second thing I would say, and I want to ask you to listen to me carefully when I say this, please. The second thing I want to tell you is the harlot tempted the young man into a large, life-changing, life-destroying sin. I mean, you can see the way it's described in those verses that I mentioned earlier, that it was going to lead to the loss of his life or to death and to hell. But I wanna be, and so you look at that and you say, well, only those large, terrible temptations could result in that sort of consequence. But I wanna be clear about this. Smaller temptations have just as much potential to lead to the destruction and death, even, that's described in those verses. And this brings us to the rest of lesson one. If you look at lesson one, part one, the harlot also represents our daily temptations, part two, which can be equally destructive. The harlot also represents our daily temptations, part two, which can be equally destructive. Proverbs 727, it says, her house is the way to hell, descending to the chambers of death, descending to the chambers of death. Now, I don't wanna spend too much time on this because we're gonna look at James 115 in a future sermon in detail, but listen to what James says. James 115, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, And sin, when it is full grown, brings forth death. So James isn't just talking about small sins, he's talking about any sin that is allowed to stay in our lives where it's gonna do what? Where it's going to grow, or it's going to mature, and then that sin is actually going to bring forth or give birth to its own child, and what child is that? That child is death, that's what James is saying. Sin, when it is full grown, are allowed to stay in the life of a believer, and mature and not be repented of is going to bring forth death. Now here's the question, what kind of death am I discussing? What kind of death do you have to concern yourself with sin resulting in if it's allowed to stay in your life? James 115 and Proverbs 727 both discuss death, and it doesn't have to be physical death. It could be, but most often it's the death of self-respect. It could be the death of sanctification. It could be the death of relationships. It could be the loss of jobs or the death of your job. How many people have lost their jobs because of some sin? It could be the death of how many students have lost scholarships or dropped out of college because of some sin. It could be the death of friendships. It could be the death of relationships with our church family. Could be the death of our marriage, could be the death of our relationship with our children, or the death of our relationships with our parents. Those are all the different deaths, and this is not an exhaustive list by any means, that sin can result in when it's allowed to grow in a person's life. The list could go on with all the potential deaths associated with giving in to temptation. So the temptation that the young man gave into in this story, it resulted in a life-changing, life-wrecking sin. But we need to understand all temptation has the potential to do this if we give into it repeatedly. Even those smaller temptations have the potential, if we give into them repeatedly, to lead to this death. Or as James 1.15 says, allow sin to then grow and become full grown and bring forth death in our lives. Let me give you a few examples. Are you going to destroy, if you're a parent, your relationship with your children when you lose your temper with them once? Hopefully not, right? Because every parent probably has lost their temper with their children once. But what if you give in to that temptation repeatedly to lose your temper with your children? Is it possible that it's going to lead to the death of your relationship with your children? They could become resentful or bitter toward you. Definitely, right? Are you going to destroy your family's financial stability when you give in to the temptation once to make a bad purchase? Possibly, I suppose, if it's a large enough, terrible enough purchase, you could wreck your family financially. But generally, it's going to take a repeated number of purchases, repeatedly giving into that temptation to waste your money that's going to lead to the financial ruin of your family. Proverbs 14.1, it says, the foolish woman pulls down or she destroys her house with her hands. Now, is a woman going to destroy her house when she's grumpy and moody once? Probably not, or hopefully not, right ladies? Is a woman gonna destroy her house when she criticizes and disrespects her husband once, when she neglects her home once? No, but she's going to pull down her house, or she's going to destroy it if she repeatedly gives in to the temptation to do those things. Now a man, is a man going to be building his home on sand, like we talked about a few weeks ago, if he fails to pray with his family once? Or he fails to read the Bible with his family once? where he fails to bring his family to church once. Is he going to build his home on sand as a result of that one omission? No. But what if a man repeatedly doesn't pray with his family, repeatedly doesn't read the Bible with his family, repeatedly fails in his spiritual leadership? He's going to be building his home on what? On sand. When you have a married couple who hardly speak to each other, and they're more like roommates than they are lovers or best friends, is that a situation that occurred over giving in to sin or giving in to temptation once? No, more than likely, that's the result of a situation of repeatedly giving in to those small daily temptations toward each other. Are children, are they gonna end up rebellious with a disregard for authority, or if they dishonor their parents once? Probably not. Most children, I'm sure, have dishonored their parents at different times or disobeyed their parents throughout their lives. But if they do it repeatedly, if they do it frequently enough, that's how you end up with children who, when they get older, have no appreciation for authority, whether it's authority in school or a job or even in the church or even a community. They have little regard for authority. And so the point is this. The point that I'm trying to make, and I hope I can say this clearly enough, It's completely possible to experience the exact same catastrophic consequences or disastrous consequences that we see this young man experience when we repeatedly give in to even what we consider to be those smaller temptations. There's definitely some people who look back and they can tell you this one time, that they did this one thing, and they would give just about anything to undo that one thing. But usually when people have regrets, it's characterized by some lifetime of repeatedly giving into the same temptation and committing the same sin. They've allowed, you might say in the language of James 1.15, for sin to grow or mature in their life and then produce death. Let me conclude this lesson by making these two points. First, the harlot in the chapter, she does not just represent the largest, most destructive temptations we can imagine. She represents those smaller daily temptations we experience. And second, and maybe more importantly, these same smaller daily temptations have the same potential to cause destruction or death as any of those large temptations that we think about if we give into those temptations frequently enough. Now, before we begin looking at Proverbs 7, I want to remind you of a few things I pointed out last week about the chapter, and I'd like to ask you to remember these things, please. First, Proverbs 7 uses some strong language at times, and God does this because the chapter is about temptation, and temptation should be viewed what? It should be viewed strongly. Do you discuss temptation with mild or trivial language? No, you don't, because temptation should not be viewed mildly or trivially, and so that's why this chapter uses strong language. When you see strong language, Let it communicate to you the dangerousness or severity of temptation. Second, like I told you last week, God is a very visual teacher. He wants us to have images or pictures in our minds, not crude or suggestive ones. But God is a visual teacher. You see it in the Old Testament with the prophets who often had object lessons to accompany the truths that they were trying to communicate. You see it with poetic language in Scripture that's used to create images or pictures in our minds. And you see it with Jesus and his parables where he often had images or he would say a sower or a friend coming at midnight or there's a wedding feast so that we would have these images or pictures to go along without teaching. These are all ways that God wants to create pictures in our minds to understand the truth of Scripture better. And I mention that because that's exactly what happens here in Proverbs 7. We're given this tremendous picture. It creates a dramatic picture of temptation for us. Because I think it's one thing for me to stand up here and mention the word temptation to you. You know what it is. But it's another thing entirely to have a picture of that, a dramatic picture of that, in our minds of what temptation looks like in this chapter. at least in my opinion, gives us the most dramatic picture of temptation in scripture. And this chapter also gives us a dramatic picture of the foolishness associated with giving in to temptation as shown through this young man. So let me briefly be clear about the two things that I hope to accomplish with this chapter. First, my hope is every time from now on that you read James 1.14 and you see that phrase, when he is drawn away, what do I hope your minds go to? Proverbs 7. And when you experience temptation, when you feel yourself being allured, I hope your minds go to Proverbs 7, and you picture that harlot trying to allure that young man. It's a gross, it's a somewhat, yeah, grotesque, offensive picture to us, and that's because I hope we have a grotesque, offensive picture of temptation in our minds. This chapter can help us view temptation biblically. It can help us take temptation more seriously. And most importantly, it can help us better resist temptation because we'll hopefully be terrified by it. And I would even say somewhat disgusted by it, based on what we see in this chapter. So with all that in mind, we're ready to look at the verses. And we find ourselves at verse 13. We read verses 6 through 12 last week. We're at verse 13. And the young man, he has been drawn away, in the language of James 1.14, in the previous verses, leading him to this point. Verse 13 says, so she caught him. and kissed him. And go ahead and pause right here. She caught him and kissed him. Now since this harlot represents temptation, there's a lot we can learn about temptation as we read about her, or as we study this chapter. And so I'd like to do something a little different this morning. Instead of having a number of different lessons, I'm gonna have one lesson discussing temptation with a number of parts. I'd like to have one lengthy lesson discussing what we can learn about temptation from this woman. And this brings us to lesson two on your inserts. So lesson two, Part one, temptation part one is aggressive. Lesson two, temptation part one is aggressive. Lesson two, part one, temptation is aggressive. You see the aggressiveness of this woman in verse 13 as she catches this man and does this, and it's shocking to us. It's almost hard to imagine a woman acting this way, seizing some young man she doesn't know and doing this to him. But if we understand that she represents temptation, that this should make perfect what? It should make perfect sense to us because her aggressiveness pictures the aggressiveness of temptation. The way she seizes him is the way that temptation wants to seize us. At times you can almost feel temptation as it's drawing you, trying to catch you like this harlot caught this young man. Now think of the way that God warned Cain. God told Cain, you could say he warned Cain and made temptation sound like this enemy that wanted to catch him. Genesis 4, 7, sin lies at the door like it's ready to pounce, you know, the aggressiveness of sin. Sin lies at the door and its desire is for you to aggressively control you is what God is communicating, but you need to control it. So Cain hadn't given into temptation yet, but God let him know that sin was right outside, and if he gave into this temptation that he'd be letting that sin inside seize him. But even at that late stage for Cain where he had let this anger toward his brother so deep In his heart, God was still letting Cain know that he could resist the temptation he was facing. And even at this late stage, with this young man, with temptation so close, I mean, the harlot has seized him at this point, that's close, there's still the potential for him to resist. And we know this because there's another man in Scripture who was equally seized. There's another man in Scripture who the exact same words are used of when another woman who bears some striking similarities to this harlot seized him, and who am I talking about? Joseph, you can circle the words caught him. In verse 13, you can circle the words caught him, and you can write Genesis 39, 12. In verse 13, circle the words caught him and write Genesis 39, 12, where the exact same words are said of Potiphar's wife. Potiphar's wife caught him, referring to Joseph by his garment, saying, lie with me. And this is what the harlot will say to the young man in the following verses. And what I want you to know is this, is despite the aggressiveness of the temptation that Joseph was experiencing, and if you're familiar with Genesis 39, you know that Potiphar's wife was very aggressive. But despite the aggressiveness of that temptation, what was Joseph still able to do? He was still able to flee. He was still able to resist. We mentioned this briefly last week. He's the tremendous picture in my mind. If you want to have another picture of resisting temptation, it's hard to find a better one than him. So the point is, despite the aggressiveness of the temptation that this young man is experiencing, he still had the potential to resist. He still could have gotten away because we already saw Joseph get away back in Genesis. But the temptation is about to get even worse for him if you look at the rest of verse 13. Look at the rest of verse 13, it says, with an impudent face, she said to him, she said, I have peace offerings with me. Today I have paid my vows. And what this woman is doing, simply put, by the mention of peace offerings and paying her vows, is she is trying to make herself sound good. She's trying to make her invitation sound good. And this brings us to the next part of the lesson. Lesson two, temptation, part two, makes itself sound good. On your inserts, lesson two, temptation, part two, makes itself sound good. Here's what's happening. Let me explain what's happening here. According to Leviticus 7, verses 16 to 18, When people fulfilled their vows, they would present a peace offering to the Lord. But with peace offerings, it's almost like Jameson was discussing communion this morning, peace offerings were more a picture of fellowship or communion with God, and so you actually kept back some of the sacrifice for yourself. The worshiper actually kept some of the sacrifice, and then they were to consume that later. and it pictured the fellowship or communion, it probably prefigured in a sense what takes place with our communion or Lord's Supper, this meal we share with Christ and with each other. And so with peace offerings, like she's discussing, the worshiper kept back some of the food, and then it was required to eat that day or the following day, and if it wasn't consumed by the day after that, then it was to be burned. Let me briefly read it. Leviticus 7.16, The food, the meat, or if it was grain, the grain shall be eaten the same day that he offers the sacrifice, but on the next day the remainder of it may also be eaten. The remainder of the flesh of the sacrifice on the third day must be burned with fire." And so you had to eat what was left that day, or the next day, or it had to be burned. And the reason I mention it is that regarding peace offerings, there was an amount of urgency. There was an amount of urgency associated with peace offerings. and them being consumed. God probably said this so that the food wouldn't spoil. And so when she comes to him and she says, I have peace offerings with me, it's her way of saying what? I have this food and it has to be eaten. It has to be consumed. And the other thing you need to know is when you ate this food, and this is important, it pictured your fellowship or your communion with God. It was part of a sacrifice, so as you ate that food, it was your continued worship, or it was your continued religious activity that you were engaging in. And so when the harlot invited this young man to enjoy this peace offering with her, it would allow him to tell himself, going with this woman will allow me to do what? engage in something religious or worshipful, eating this meal with her will actually be a form of worship. She has this food. According to God's law, it has to be consumed. She probably can't eat it all herself. And so I can help her with that. And so basically he could say that this woman is inviting me to do something good. And that's what's in view here. And I want you to think of the way that the devil tempts people in scripture. He tries to get them to see some good, or some supposed good, you might say, in the temptation. The devil told Eve, what? What's going to happen if you eat this? You're going to die. Now what did he say? Your eyes will be opened, you will be like God, you will know good and evil. He was telling her the good that there was in her doing this. When the devil tempted Jesus, he said, turn these stones into bread. And what had Jesus not done for some number of weeks at that point? Did it look like a good thing for Jesus to eat? He said, you're the son of God. He meant, why would you put yourself through this? Why would you be starving like this? Why would you allow this to take place? You need to eat. You're gonna die. Eating is good. You should eat something. Turn these stones into bread. And this is how temptation often works. So to be clear, And please hear me on this. For the person who wants to give into temptation, for the person who wants to sin, what are they almost always going to be able to find? Some supposed good that's being brought forth by giving into this temptation. They'll almost always be able to find some supposed good, and I'm using the word good loosely to justify their sin. They'll be able to give you almost an endless number of excuses or reasons for doing what they're doing because of this good that it's gonna supposedly accomplish. Here's a few examples. A believer wants to marry an unbeliever, strictly forbidden by God, but they'll be able to give you, if you ever talk to someone, and I've probably spoken to two or three people. in the last 10 or 15 years who are believers who wanted to marry an unbeliever, and they can almost always tell you all the good reasons that they should marry this unbeliever, even though it's forbidden by God's word. There's a number of ways that people can justify purchases that might introduce some large amount. They might not have the money for it. It might be introducing debt into their lives. They can't afford it, but they can almost always give you some reasons that they should make this purchase. When it's going to involve compromising places or engaging in compromising activities, there's almost no end to the reasons or excuses people can give you for the things that they want to be able to do and the supposed good that it'll bring forth. When parents lose their temper at their children and they scream at them, or when parents mistreat their children, parents can turn around and say, what? My child shouldn't have been acting that way. I need to teach them right from wrong. If I don't discipline them, they're not going to learn. It's my responsibility to treat them like this, as though the parent can excuse or justify the loss of their temper. When children disobey their parents, they can say, you know, my parents are too controlling. Parents shouldn't act like this. It's not right for my parents to tell me that I can't do this. There's nothing wrong with it. They should not be able to control me like this. I don't need to listen to them. Malachi 2.16, God says that he hates divorce. And we have a number of verses spoken by Jesus and Paul in the New Testament that highly discourage divorce, or you could say encourage people not to divorce, not separating what God has joined together. But when people want a divorce, can they find any number of good reasons to justify that divorce? Yes. And if there's children involved, you can almost be guaranteed that they're going to tell you how this is best for the children, too. People can justify lying, stealing, plenty of other sins because of the supposed good that will come from it. And I want to mention something briefly. I think this is important and I'd back up just a second. I want to add this as a note. Whenever I mention divorce in a sermon, I want to be clear I wish I had done this at times when I've mentioned divorces and sermons. I want to be clear about the commitment that we have as a leadership to support the marriages here, to support those marriages being healthy and joyful and strong. It's easy for churches to condemn divorce. It's a lot harder for churches to say that we'll do whatever we can to make sure that your marriage can be healthy and strong. This is actually something, you know, Pastor Doug, when he looked over my notes, to come up with a family worship guide, he said, you should mention this. And I appreciated him saying that. So I want to be clear, yes, we can stand here and churches can condemn divorces and make people sound condemned, but it's another thing to say we'll do whatever we can to help prevent that divorce taking place. And not just counseling. If a separation was necessitated because of some form of abuse, we would do what we could to provide some place for the separation to take place while these people worked out their issues for, you know, I don't know how many weeks it might take, but I just want to be clear about that. That's our commitment to see marriages be strong and healthy here and to prevent divorce. But there's no way to go back to the lesson that I could go through all the different ways that temptation strives to convince us about some supposed good that's going to be brought forth if we give in to the temptation. My point is not to provide an exhaustive list. My point is simply that temptation often makes itself look good to us. It'll say things like, I paid my vows. I paid my vows. I have these peace offerings with me. And I'm stressing this for two reasons. First, to help us be on guard against this happening. We need to be aware of this. We need to be aware that when we're tempted, there will often be some way for us to convince ourselves that we can bring about something good. And the second reason I mention this is to help us keep in mind that when we do give into temptation, because we've convinced ourselves that we're going to bring about some supposed good. All we've really done is we have allowed ourselves to be deceived. We have given in to a lie. We have allowed the world or the devil or we've allowed our flesh to have some victory. We haven't really accomplished any supposed good. And there's one other point about this verse that I'd like to mention. Verse 14, I don't know if I'm the only one that thought this when studying this chapter, it just doesn't seem to fit. It does not seem to fit. If you look at it again, you've got this terribly sexually immoral woman, the picture of wickedness in the pages of scripture, and she's talking about what? peace offerings, worship, religious activity. You say, how could a woman who's so sexually immoral be engaging in religious activity? That's the question. How could a woman this sexually immoral be engaging in religious activity or worship? But I want to be clear that it's not too far of a cry from some of the things that we see today. Think about this. We're all familiar with churches that have embraced homosexuality. And with the ruling in the Supreme Court, we can almost be assured that the number of those churches is just going to continue to increase. So what you have is this. You have churches that are engaging in some amount of religious activity while they're also approving of or condoning or possibly even taking place individuals within their churches, what God has identified as a perversion or as a sin. And so what you've got is you've got some religious activity taking place while there's this approval or this sexual immorality that's taking place. And it's really not much different than the harlot. This religious activity, terrible sexual immorality. You'll hear of churches. There'll be individuals who are living together outside of marriage. Individuals living together outside of marriage, attending those churches regularly. And the churches won't address it. They won't say anything about it. And so what you've got is you've got people who are engaging in sexual immorality, but they're also engaging in what? Religious activity, not much different than this woman. And sometimes you'll have churches who know about this, the people doing this are living this way and they won't say anything about it, they won't address it. And when churches ignore those individuals, and this is one of the common things that I've heard, they'll say things like, leave them alone, and then whatever follows is basically very close to, they have their peace offerings, or they're worshiping, they've paid their vows, they should be able to be here, don't judge them, you know, lest you be judged, or you've sinned too, who do you think you are? And so they should be able to be here and they should be able to worship. A few years back, I'll share this story with you. Someone told me about a church that I was familiar with, and I knew the pastor. One of the elders in the church was living with a woman. And honestly, I hoped that it wasn't true. What does Proverbs say? How many sides of the story do you need to hear before you come to a conclusion? At least two, right? And so I'd heard one side of this story, and so giving the benefit of the doubt to this pastor that I knew, I was hoping that it wasn't true. And so I contacted him. And I set up this meeting with him and I said, I don't like having to talk to you about this. And I didn't. It was definitely one of those parts of the job or parts of, I'm sure would be parts of your life too that you wouldn't enjoy. And I said, I hope what I heard is true. I felt, or not true, excuse me. I hope what I heard is not true, but I feel like I have this responsibility to talk to you about this for any number of reasons, including the possibility that it's not true. And then I can go back and tell this person to stop spreading rumors. I told the gentleman that, or there's a potential that you didn't know about it and maybe it's taking place in your church and this will alert you to it so that you can deal with it. And I told the pastor that if he ever heard something like this about me or my church or one of my elders or something like this taking place in my church, that he would do what? would talk to me about it, that he would come to me about it, I would consider that to be the loving response, and I would only hope that that would be his response, and I hoped that he saw my actions toward him as loving, and that was how I meant them. And so what he told me was that it was true, and he said that there had been this elder in his church who had been living with this woman for some number of years, and he basically said he wasn't happy about, the pastor said he wasn't happy about the situation, But the elder claimed that he was a Christian, and when he was confronted, he swore up and down how he had given his life to the Lord, and that he was convinced in his mind that he was in good terms with God, and that he was a Christian. And so the pastor let me know there wasn't gonna be anything else done about it. That was where it was gonna stand and continue to stand, and there was this point in the conversation where I realized, you know, to go much further than this with the pastor is just gonna burn this bridge between us, basically, because he's determined not to say anything about this in his church. And so, needless to say, it was a sad meeting, and hearing this pastor who had been in ministry for decades tell me that he wasn't going to do anything about this adulterous or fornicating elder, it seemed like the pastor thought that this man had paid his vows. It seemed like the pastor thought that this man had his peace offerings, and so he should be able to be sexually immoral while engaging in this religious activity. And the point is this, you've got an individual in a church and an elder at that who's committing sexual sin while engaging in religious activity, and it's really not much different than the harlot situation. And now I know we listen to this, and I know that it shocks us. The harlot's actions shock us. The church is embracing. Homosexuality shocks us. Probably the story about the elder shocks us. We can't believe it. It angers us. But let me ask you this. If you have people, let's say people in our church, and they're engaging in religious activity, they're worshiping on Sunday, and then they're committing sexual sin during the week, are they different than this harlot? If we have people in this church, and they worship with us, or they come to church with us, or they engage in some amount of religious activity with us, and then they're sexually immoral during the week, are they any different than this harlot? The sin might be a little different, but there's still sexual immorality. You have sexual immorality being combined with religious activity. So while this can apply to women, too, I wanna say something to the gentleman. I'll address the gentleman with this, because I believe it's generally more of a problem with men than women. Gentlemen, if you worship, If you engage in religious activity on Sunday, but then you look at pornography during the week, then what you're doing is engaging in religious activity while there's sexual immorality in your life. And that's really not much different. You're engaging in religious activity, you've paid your vows, you've made your peace offerings. Then you're engaging in your sexual immorality. You're committing adultery. This would go for men who are married. It would go for men who are unmarried. And it's not much different. It's just not much different. So while it's tempting to want to look down on this woman, and we should because of her wickedness, we should understand that our wickedness is not too far removed if we're engaging in religious activity, but then we're sexually immoral during the week. And probably our minds go immediately to physical immorality and think, well, you know, I wouldn't do that. I couldn't see myself doing that. But if it's looking at pornography, gentlemen, then it's not much, if any, different than what this woman is doing. Now let me conclude this lesson by saying this. While my desire with the chapter is to compare ourselves with the young man, that's my desire, that the young man is an example to us that we learn from and resist temptation like he didn't, so we do the opposite of him. But if you're sexually immoral during the week, then you actually need to compare yourself with who? Not the young man, but with the harlot. You need to compare yourself with the harlot and see yourself more like her, engaging in this religious activity, your peace offering, paying your vows, but then having this sexual immorality in your life. Now please look at verse 15 to see the next way the temptation works. Look at verse 15. She said, I came out to meet you diligently to seek your face, and I have found you. And her point is since she has this food and it has to be eaten, she came out to find this young man and invite him to a meal with her. But listen to this verse about harlots and the meals that they eat. Proverbs 30 verse 20. This is the way of an adulterous woman. She eats and she wipes her mouth and she says, I have done no wickedness. And that is a disturbing verse. That is a disturbing verse. And it probably describes what this woman has done countless times before. and what she desires to do with this young man. But what I really want you to notice in the verse, if you look at the verse, part of the reason that the young man gives in to the harlot relates to the way that she spoke to him. And this brings us to the next part of the lesson. On your inserts, lesson two, temptation appeals to our, what is she appealing to? Let me just see if you see it. What is she appealing to there in the way that she talks to him? Does anyone see it? I came out to meet you diligently to seek your face. I have found you. What's she appealing to? She is appealing to his pride or his ego, his male ego. The answer is pride. Temptation appeals to our pride. On your inserts, temptation appeals to our pride. Temptation appeals to our pride. I came out to meet you Diligently to seek your face diligence refers to working hard So she actually says I've been working so hard to see your face I have found you after all this time finally you the handsome special unique one that I have really really been looking for and now finally I have found you I In reality, she's a married woman who's always on the prowl for just about anyone. But this young man just happens to be her next victim, and he happens to be the one that she found. And he's foolish enough to believe what she says, because she's appealing to his male ego. She flatters him, she makes him feel like he's special. And if you look back at verse six, what word describes this young man? You guys see it there? Simple. He is a simple man. He is a simple man. And so when she says this, guess what he does? No, yes, he's convinced, he believes her, so he buys into this. After being drawn away this far and this long, you can be sure that he probably also wants to believe it. He wants to believe that what she's saying is true. And the lesson for us to remember is when we start taking the path toward temptation, we're gonna reach a point where we'll believe just about anything. We'll reach a point where we'll believe just about anything, and part of the reason is we want to believe it because we want to engage in that sin that is tempting us. Temptation loves to appeal to our pride. And let me get you to think about why that is for just a moment. Why would temptation want to appeal to our pride? Why does temptation want to appeal to our pride? Because our pride can convince us of any number of things. Our pride can always convince us to indulge ourselves. Our pride can convince us, you deserve this. You can do this and not have any problems. You can do this and you'll be able to stop. You can do this and it won't ruin your marriage. It won't ruin your family. After the way that that person treated you, you have every right to say what you want about him. After the way that person treated you, you have every reason not to forgive him. You are such a good person, our pride loves to tell us this, you are such a good person, you've done so many more good things than bad, that even when you do this, it's not gonna tip the scales. You're still gonna be a really good person when you do this. And that's how our pride appeals to us. And that's why the harlot appeals to his pride, because our pride indulges us and makes us think we can do certain things. Now if you look at verse 16, you see the other way that she appeals to him. Look at verse 16 to see the next way she appeals to him. Verse 16, I have spread my bed with tapestry, colored coverings of Egyptian linen. I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. And she makes this appeal and it brings us to the next part of lesson two. Lesson two, temptation appeals to our part four senses. Temptation appeals to our part four senses. It appeals to our senses. Temptation always makes itself as attractive to us as possible, and one of the ways that it makes itself attractive is by appealing to our senses. She invited him to a meal with her. That was appealing to his sense of what? Okay, let me say it again. She invited him into a meal that would appeal to his sense of taste. Thank you. I didn't think that was gonna be such a stumper for you guys. Were you thinking hearing or sight? Okay, so appeal to his sense of taste. She spoke to him about how wonderful and important he is appealing to his sense of hearing. If you look at this verse, you can see how the harlot's words appeal to the young man's sense of smell, his sense of touch, his sense of sight. And that's what temptation does, it appeals to our senses. First John 2.16, all that's in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life, it's not of the Father, but it's of the world. In that verse, what it's really doing is it's just describing the different ways that the world appeals to our senses or tempts us through our senses. Please listen to this quote I shared last week. Jerry White said, what is temptation? Some synonyms for tempt are allure, attract, entice, seduce, tantalize. Each word generates an emotional picture. Each word generates an emotional picture. We're allured by the temptation. We're attracted to it, enticed by it, seduced by the seeming pleasure, tantalized by the fantasy of what it would like. And so Jerry White's quote is basically saying that temptation creates pictures in our minds of how great it's going to be to engage in this sin. And that's exactly what the harlot is doing. If you look at those verses, that's what she's doing. She's creating a picture or image in his mind of how great it's going to be to engage in this sin. And that's why we need an equally strong picture in our minds of how what it will be if we give in to this temptation. painful, disastrous, destructive to our families, the death that it will cause. So when temptation is painting these pictures, like this heart that was doing, and trying to convince us of how great and wonderful, you know, like Jerry White said, tantalizing, pleasurable, causing us to fantasize, we need to remember, have a better picture, stronger image in our mind, of just how destructive of the death that it's going to end up causing when we give in to it. It's common for temptation to appeal to our senses like this. Think of the way that the devil tempted Eve. Genesis 3.6, when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, pleasant to the eyes, a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. And those words, when the woman saw, I mean you can just picture Eve. when the woman saw. She is beginning to fantasize. She's getting excited. And it says, the words, tree was good for food, reveal how it appealed to her sense of taste, pleasant to the eyes, appealed to her sense of sight, desirable to make one wise, like we just discussed, appealed to her sense of pride. And that's what took place with Eve. That's what took place with the young man. And that's often what takes place with us when we're being tempted. So we need to be on guard against it. We need to be on guard against all the different ways that temptation tries to appeal to us. Now next week, we're going to continue at verse 18. If you want to read ahead, you can start reading at verse 18 for next Sunday's sermon. For now, I want to close by giving you some thoughts that relate not just to this sermon, but relates to all of our sermons on temptation. We've been talking about temptation for a few weeks, and I expect to talk about it for a few more. And I want to be clear about what I hope these sermons on temptation do and what they don't do. So to be clear, we've been talking about temptation for a few weeks. We're going to talk about it for a few weeks more. And I want to be very clear about what I hope these sermons on temptation do and what I hope they don't do. I hope these sermons give you some encouragement regarding temptation and the seriousness of it and how to better resist it. But here's what I hope these sermons don't do, or here's what I hope these sermons are not doing. I hope they don't encourage you to walk out of here saying, you know, now I have these lessons. I've gotten this counsel from Pastor Scott. I have seen in God's Word how to resist temptation. And now I am stronger and I can go out there and I can resist temptation in my own effort. We definitely don't want anyone leaving saying that. I hope you say, I see from scripture, I've heard these lessons, I've listened to these sermons, I'm stronger against temptation, but we don't want anyone walking out saying, and now I can resist it in my own effort. The truth is you can't resist temptation in your own effort. It would be foolish to try. Those of you who have tried, especially those who remember trying when they were unregenerate or when they were unsaved or absent of the Holy Spirit, remember what a futile and frustrating endeavor that was. Please listen to these words that we're going to sing during the closing song. I need thee every hour. Stay thou nearby. Temptations lose their power when thou art nigh." And what this song is doing is it's highlighting temptations lose their power. It's highlighting the reality that we can resist temptation better when we're closer to whom? when we're closer to Christ, when we're closer to Jesus, when we have stronger relationships with God. The song repeatedly says, I need thee, oh I need thee, every hour I need thee. And the point is this, we don't get saved and then stop needing what or whom. our Savior. We don't get saved. We don't embrace the gospel and then put on a shelf and we're done with it. We don't get saved and then we no longer need our Savior. And how often are we tempted even according to the song? Every hour. How often do we need our Savior? Every hour. The first lesson says that we experience temptation. How often? The first lesson. Take a look at it on your inserts. How often? Daily temptations. Daily temptations. When we experience these temptations, where do we go? We go to thee, we go to thee, we go to Christ. We have a great high priest who intercedes for us, a great high priest who helps us, who strengthens us. Please listen to these two verses. Listen to these two verses, please. Hebrews 4.15. We do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but he was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Now you read that verse, and if you stopped right there, you would say, yeah, we know that. We know Jesus resisted all temptation. He was sinless, so he could be our sinless, perfect substitute. But a lesser known reason that Jesus experienced temptation is given or revealed to us in the very next verse after that, that we would all do very well to consider and remember. Please listen to this. You have this verse discussing Jesus resisting temptation, and then right after that, you're told one of the blessings, tremendous blessings associated with that truth. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in what? our time of need. And what is that talking about? It's talking about when we're—what's the context? What's the context? What was it talking about in the previous verse? Jesus being tempted in our time of need. It's referring to us being tempted. Jesus being able to help us in that time of need. We have a Savior. We have a high priest who wants to help us resist temptation in our time of need. Now, if you've surrendered your life to Christ, If you're a Christian and you're struggling with sin, I want to encourage you to repent. Repentance is not a one-time act by which you do it and then you're saved and then you never do it again. Repentance is an ongoing part of the Christian life following conversion. Repentance allows us to remove those areas of our lives that make us less like whom? Less like Christ. And when those areas are removed, when they're repented of, and separated from us, our sanctification takes place. We become more like Christ. Now, if you claim to be saved, and this is important, and I hope you'll hear me on this. And I might not say this enough. I might not say this enough here. And I think about what I would want in a flock or a congregation, and what I would want is a saved flock. If I can only choose one thing, it wouldn't be mature, it wouldn't be knowledgeable of scripture, it would be saved. It would be a saved, born again, regenerate flock. Now, if you claim to be saved, but you're continually struggling with sin, you need to consider the real possibility that you're not saved. You need to consider the real possibility that if sin characterizes you or defines you, characterizes your life, that you are not a Christian. And that's not my opinion. There are a lot of verses I could tell you, but you know that I wanted to wrap up this sermon sometime before evening service, right? So listen to this, 1 Corinthians 6, 9. Do not be deceived. Isn't it interesting Paul says do not be deceived sometimes? I mean, we know there's all these areas, everything he's talking about, he doesn't want us deceived. Why do you think there are some times when Paul says do not be deceived before he says something? Do you think it's because there's a greater potential for us to be deceived in this area that he's about to mention? Do you think that's why he says, do not be deceived? Because we are more prone to be deceived regarding this discussion he's about to have with us? 1 Corinthians 6, 9, do not be deceived, and then this is why. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, will inherit the kingdom of God." And then after this, listen to this, such were some of you, and such were some of you. imply you used to be. That's who you were previously. That's what defined your life or characterized your life. You're no longer that. You might give in or you might backslide or there might be in Romans 7, you know, describing that safe haven for all of us where Paul says, I don't do what I want to do, I do what I don't want to do. That's a safe haven for all believers to understand the struggle that takes place. You go there when you're starting to wonder if you're saved. And you say, okay, there's that struggle that's taking place with all of us. But if your life is characterized by one of these sins, and you could be identified as an adulterer, or a fornicator, or a homosexual, or a drunkard, or a reviler, then you need to understand you're probably not saved. It cannot be said of you, you used to be, or this, when he says, some of you were this, you still are that. And what does it say about those people, that they're not gonna inherit what? They're not gonna inherit the kingdom of God. If your life is currently characterized by any of those sins and you don't have victory over it, don't be prideful. Acknowledge the possibility that you might not be saved and you need to pray and ask God, Lord, am I unregenerate? Am I not born again? Is that why I'm continuing to struggle with this? And then surrender your life to Christ. The good news, or the gospel is that Christ wants to save all those who come to him. Christ wants to save all those who come to him. Hebrews 7.25, Jesus is able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through him. I love that word uttermost, like the uttermost. He wants to save as fully and completely as you can be saved. Christ wants to save those who come to him, but you've gotta come to him. Now if you're not saved and you know it, have never surrendered your life to Christ. You have been living for yourself, but perhaps God is showing you that. He is showing you who you are. He is showing you what you are. You are a sinner who stands condemned before a perfectly holy and righteous God, should you ignore that conviction, should you ignore that revelation that God is graciously giving you about your spiritual state, if you're a fool. If you're a fool, you should. And then you can look forward to a fate that's infinitely worse than what this young man in this chapter experienced, a fate infinitely worse than the young man in Proverbs 7. because God gave his son to graciously take that punishment for our sins and you need his son to do that for you or you take that punishment yourself. If you have not done that, you're more foolish than the young man in this story. You're choosing to reject that sacrifice. You're inviting God to put that punishment on your shoulders instead of his son when he hung on that cross. Now, let God redeem you. Let him forgive your sins. Let him pour out that punishment on his son and give you a new heart. Today could be the day of salvation for you. Now, for any reason, anything that I've discussed this morning, you feel any burden, you feel any conviction whatsoever, Pastor Doug and I will be up front at the end of service. We'd love the opportunity to talk to you, to pray for you. If there's any struggle going on in your life, whatever that looks like, we'll be up here. We would love the opportunity to pray with you. We would consider it a real privilege.