verses 12 through 16. And let's read these verses in unison. James chapter 1 verses 12 through 16 the Word of God says, Blessed is the man that endureth temptation for when he is tried he shall receive the crown of life which the Lord hath promised to them that love him. 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. Let's pray. Lord, help us as we look at these scriptures Ones that some know well, ones that would be new to newer Christians, oh, but Lord, how we, as your people, need to know these verses and understand them. We can see how the process of temptation works to trip us up and that we could be better equipped to say no to sin and say yes to you. Give us wise and understanding hearts, we pray in Christ's name, amen. And you may be seated. The subject of the verses we read were temptation. When we get saved, there's a part of us that is born again, a part of us with Inside of us, our soul, our resurrected spirit, that part of us cannot sin. It's destined for heaven, but as we say often, that saved part of us is wrapped with this robe of flesh. And there's a constant battle between the Spirit, capital S, Holy Spirit, and our flesh. Satan has two main goals for every person. The first is damnation. Satan wants to take everybody he can to hell with him. That's why he works so hard to keep the world blinded to the gospel, keep the world blinded to the truth. You ever wonder why can't people just see certain things that are obviously true? The Bible says they're blind. It's almost like the devil with some people has his hands over their eyes. Of course, we know the scripture talks about we're all blinded by our sinful condition. Satan works hard to keep us from ever seeing the light. So Satan wants to take everybody to hell with him that he can. That's his plan. Thank God for the gospel. Thank God that as 2 Corinthians chapter 4 tells us that that gospel light can break through that blindness and save the soul. And boy, when you see the gospel, when you get saved, it's like opening your eyes for the very first time. It's like the first time you've ever seen a sunrise, the first time you've ever seen a rainbow, the first time you've ever seen the sky. Try to explain the sunset tonight to a blind person. There really are no words to explain the different hues and the beauty and the way the light bounces off of things and the glory of it. The changing shadows moment by moment. Explain a sunrise. Explain darkness to a lost person. Well, darkness is the absence of light. What's light? Well, you know when it's bright. What's bright? Well, you know when things get yellow or white. What's yellow and white? I mean, there's really no vocabulary to explain these things in a way like you and I get to work with every day. Every day, you and I have a common vocabulary. What's green? That's green. What's water? This is water. But imagine if you just couldn't even see it. And Satan works so hard to keep people blind so he can keep their soul damned to hell. And I don't use that as a curse word, I use it as a technical theological term. Their soul is condemned to eternal damnation because of their sinful condition. But thank God for the gospel. You know, once you get saved, Satan doesn't give up on you. He doesn't say, well, those people are saved, so now I'll just forget about them. No, what happens is Satan's first plan for you is damnation, but once you get saved, he just goes to plan B, and that's destruction. If Satan can't take you to hell, he wants to make your life like a hell on earth. And how does he do that? By getting you to stop following Jesus, by getting you to go into sin. You know, once you get saved, old Pastor Ross used to say, once you get saved, you're ruined for this world. And I remember going to parties and enjoying them. After I got saved, I'd go to the same party, and it wasn't fun anymore. I remember being at a party one night, and it's like, why are you here? It's like, something inside me is like, why are you here? This isn't your crowd. These aren't your people. And I just, I went there with a girl, thank God he saved me, and she ended up spending the rest of the evening with another guy. I sat on the couch going, what in the world am I doing here? And thank God he saved me. That was the last party like that I ever went to. Saved me from that kind of mess. Listen, Satan never gives up. His goal for you is damnation. And he wants you to get into sin. There is never a time when Satan will give up on tempting you. Tempting you to sin, tempting you to do wrong. And he doesn't mind getting you to do the little sins, because little sins lead to big sins. And so he'll tempt you with little things, and little things, and little things, and you start giving into those. And then they get a little bigger and you start giving into those. You get a little bigger and start giving into those. And every shipwreck that we've seen, every Christian who once followed Jesus, who once sat in a Sunday evening church service, who once had the Bible on their lap like you do now, who once had a desire to please the Lord, every Christian who's out there shipwrecked on some sandbar of sin in the world tonight. It happened because of temptation. And when Satan performs this destruction on our lives, it paralyzes us from doing any good for the Savior. See, the thing is, if Satan can destroy you, you're not gonna win anybody to Jesus. You're not gonna save anybody from this terrible thing called sin. We're not going to point people to Christ and tell him what he's done for us and how he could save them. I've met people who are saved, and it's such a sad story, this often happens, and you know people like this, too. They're saved, but they got backslidden, and their kids aren't saved. And it doesn't even seem to bother them that their own children are not saved. Their own children are one heartbeat away from a Christless eternity, and it doesn't even seem to bother them because they're so destroyed that Satan has effectively murdered their testimony. There are people in the room tonight, you've got kids that aren't saved, you've got grandkids that aren't saved, you've got friends and family that aren't saved, but it bothers you. And you pray about it, and you weep over it, and that's the way it should be. But if Satan's plan number one is damnation, Satan's plan number two is destruction. And the tool Satan uses to lead us to destruction is temptation. And we will be tempted every day. But the question tonight is, do we know how temptation works? Is there a pattern to temptation? And the answer is yes. Temptation always follows a pattern. And if you and I, if we can learn to recognize the pattern of temptation, then in the beginning when temptation starts, we can say, oh, I know what that is. I know what you're trying to do there. I know what's happening. And we can stop. But if we don't understand how temptation works, we walk right into the trap and it causes a lot of damage. I want you to think about the last time you were tempted. When's the last time Satan tempted you? Why did it affect you so much? Why did it have such power over you? Did you overcome the temptation or did you succumb to it? And why? Why sometimes are you successful and why sometimes do we give in? We've got to understand this. The Bible, in the text we read, gives us an incredible amount about sin and temptation. Gives us a lot of information. And James chapter 1 is one of the supreme scriptures on temptation in the scripture. And tonight I want to talk to you about this subject, the operation of temptation. The operation of temptation. How does temptation work? First I want you to notice the subject of temptation in verse 12. Blessed is the man that endureth temptation. So who's the subject of temptation? Who's the target of temptation? The Christian. The Christian man, the Christian woman, the believer in Christ. You are the target of temptation. Satan is looking to get you to trip up. Now our text here in verse 12 thankfully reminds us that there is a reward for enduring temptation. Every time we are tempted and we say no and we do right and don't give in to that temptation, that makes us stronger spiritually. And the Bible says when we do that repeatedly, when we get in the habit of saying no to temptation and we gain the victory in some certain areas, there are actually one of the crowns in heaven that we'll get to give back to Jesus is a crown for overcoming temptation. the crown of life, one of the five crowns that we get at the judgment seat of Christ to give back to Christ eternally to show and prove our love for him and how we loved him here on earth. And notice it says that, for when he has tried, he shall receive the crown of life which the Lord hath promised, look at the next part, to them that love him. So God equates your love for him with your ability to endure temptation. Jesus said, if you love me, keep my commandments. And one simple preacher one day said, you sin because you don't love God enough. And there's a lot of truth to that. We sin because we don't love God enough. If there's an area in our life where we're struggling, we've got to understand, do we love that thing more than we love Jesus? And our answer would be no. But what does our life look like? And we won't take time to look at it, but like John chapter 20 and 21, where he's dealing there with Peter. and he catches some fish. Peter's out fishing all night. Peter quits the ministry to go back into fishing. They fish all night and catch nothing. The next morning, they see Jesus on the shore, and one of them says, John says, it's the Lord. Well, Peter jumps in the water, swims back to shore. He couldn't even wait until the boat docks. Now, that's some sort of devotion, wouldn't you agree? Jumping in the water swimming in that that water getting to Jesus climbing up on the shore Jesus has the fish cooking the very thing that they had been looking for all night Jesus had already had and he had filleted and cooked it. That's how God does it You say I'm gonna go catch fish and Jesus says if you follow me, I'll give it to you filleted and cooked The nice salt and pepper on it. Give you a little flavoring best fish you ever ate. I And then Jesus asks the question, lovest thou me more than these? What's these? What's in front of them? Fish. Peter, you're quitting the ministry so you can go fishing? Peter, do you love me more than fish? And imagine how offensive that would be. What do you mean, Lord? Of course I love you more than fish. And feed my sheep. If you love me more than fish, then why aren't you doing what I called you to do? Why are you quitting and going back to fishing? He asks again, love is tell me more than these? Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. Feed my sheep. See, to God, this is, It's hitting me hard, I hope it's hitting you hard. To God, when we look at a temptation, it's really a question of love. Paul, do you love that sin more than me? Do you love that feeling more than me? Do you love that person? Do you love that money? Do you love that fish? Do you love that activity? Do you love that more than me? And when I was a young man, I had surrendered to God and God was growing me. I got saved when I was 16. I really began to, I really turned my life over to Jesus in surrender. The summer, I was 17. I was just getting ready to start my my senior year, and it's hard to understand for some people, but for me, it was a big deal. I look back on it, it's like it really wasn't that big of a deal, but it really was for a young 17-year-old. I'd been in the same school since kindergarten. I'd had the same friend group since four-year-old preschool. I was on a varsity track team, varsity cross-country team, varsity basketball team, but basketball was really, I just loved it. It was an idol. And I felt like the Lord wanted me to go to the Christian school. I'm like, Lord, let me just finish up my senior year. I'd been working out all year long and practiced all year long, running and lifting and getting there early. And one of the assistant coaches would get there early in a couple hours, work us out every day, shooting. And I mean, we'd run drills and we'd put brooms on seats and dribble and practice your jump shot shooting over a broom, like somebody's got their hand up. I mean, it was a lot. And I know it's hard for you to picture this, but I was buff. I mean, I was, but... And God began to say, you need to do this, you need to do this. And part of me was like, I don't know if I'm strong enough to finish a senior year in school and stay faithful to Jesus, and I need to follow the Lord and go to Christian school. And the other part of me was like, I've worked my whole life, basically, since fifth grade for this senior year. And I said, you know what, I'm just gonna go to school, I'm gonna go to school my senior year, I'm gonna play the basketball, and I'm gonna follow Jesus after that. You gotta understand, I mean, I took my basketball with me everywhere. I slept with it in bed. I would dribble it on the gravel. I took it with me to school on the bus. I mean, my basketball was always with me. We'd get to school early and shoot 500 free throws before class started. You gotta understand, we're in it. And I really sensed in my spirit, I came across this passage of scripture, and it was almost like Jesus saying, Paul, do you love me more than basketball? I was like, oh, come on, Lord, you know I love you more than basketball. Then do what I told you to do. Ah, Lord, you know, come on, Lord, you know, you know my heart. Again, Paul, you love me more than basketball. Lord, that's such a ridiculous question. Who would love you more than a basketball? Who would love you more? You know, the holy hand pointing to me. Who would love you more than basketball? That's ridiculous. And do what I told you. And so finally, here's the kicker. You know how you have conversations with God? And I said, you know what? God will forgive me. You ever do that? You know, God will forgive me. I'm just going to do it. God will forgive me. And then I felt in my spirit, it was almost like God said, OK, break a leg. I said, what? What was that? And it was like in my spirit, it was like, it's awful hard to play basketball with a broken leg. And then I had this vision of me rebelling against God to play basketball And at the beginning of the season, I sprain an ankle, tear a knee, break a leg, and now I'm stuck. How foolish would that feel? Sometimes God has to lead you down the road before you say, you know what? It's not worth that. And I'm just saying, folks, I had a temptation, one of countless, and thankfully in that In that scenario, I picked the right one. I went to Christian school. I actually went to ask the preacher if I could go after I surrendered to Jesus. I went to Pastor Ross and told him excitedly, Pastor Ross, I want to come to the Christian school. And I thought he'd be like, boy, Paul, that's a great idea. I'm excited. He looked at me and goes, no, you're not ready, and walked off. And I just stood there crying. I just started crying. Like, what do you mean I'm not ready? So now I surrendered to Jesus. Now I can't go anyway? And so a few days later, I go into Pastor Ross' office and I'm like weeping and bawling. I'm saying, I want to surrender to God. I want to go to Christian school. I believe it's what God wants me to do. And he finally said, after a while, he said, I just needed to know you were serious. He said, I didn't want you to have a good intention and then regret after you got here. I thought that was pretty wise. But when, in that decision and in every decision since, To God, it's a thing of love. Do you love me more than that thing? And we'd like to think it's not a matter of love. Of course I love you. But to God, it's a love issue. Which the Lord hath promised to them that love him. Blessed is the man that endureth temptation. he shall receive a crown of life which the lord hath promised him promised to them to love him and so if we want to be truly blessed we have to learn to endure temptation that means to be in the in the presence of temptation and still say yes to god when all the hosts of hell When every trick and tool of the devil is pointed at you to try to get you to do something foolish, it could be anything from doing something small and stupid to doing something that's going to wreck your life, ruin your marriage, destroy your testimony. It's all the same playbook. It always follows the same pattern. And if we can learn the pattern, then we can realize, hey, this is a love issue. This isn't about what I want or how I feel or what I think I need. This is an opportunity for me to prove my love. Now look at James chapter one, verse two. My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into divers temptation. The word divers there means different or various. So there's all kinds of temptation. There are temptations to sin. There are trials of your faith. All kinds of temptation. What I find, though, is most temptations arise from our four primal desires. So Satan will usually target one of these four things because they're primal desires and consistent across all humanity. First, he will tempt our passions. our passions. This includes emotions such as desire, fear, hope, grief, love, hatred. some passion that gets stirred up in us that we get tempted to act upon. Next, we see temptations of power. This includes a desire for power, a desire for status, a desire for station to be thought well of others. And boy, won't people go to great lengths to gain some sort of status among their peers. Next, we see the primal desire of possessions. We are a covetous people. That's why one of the Ten Commandments is, thou shalt not covet. That's why I can't read a Home Depot ad. Comes in the newspaper. You know why? There's 13 tools that I didn't know I needed. And it's on sale. And boy, I could save 100 bucks if I spend 1,000. What a deal. How can you not do it? And this is the way temptation works. You don't even know that you need these things, but boy, it gets put in front of you, and it stirs up some desire in you. And now you need these possessions. You know what? My car looks fine. My car works fine. 99% of the time, I am thrilled and grateful for my car. And then a Mustang drives by. Wow. I could use one of those. Isn't that the way it works? And then think about pleasure. So we had passion, power, possessions, pleasure. This is the desire for satisfaction, entertainment, relaxation, enjoyment, thrill. Almost every temptation will fall into one of these four primal categories. So we have to know these are the areas where we have soft spots. Even when you put on the armor of God, there are chinks in the armor. Between the breastplate and the helmet, you've got your neck area. And a warrior knows this is dangerous. You've got on full armor, and boy, under the armpit, under the ribs right here, a warrior, when he learns to fight, he learns that that's a danger spot. And we as God's people have to learn that even on our best days, we have these soft spots that are still open to attack if we're not careful. That's important for us to understand that temptation itself is not a sin. How do we know that? Jesus was tempted, yet without sin. So the temptation is not the sin, it's yielding to the temptation that's a sin. My preacher used to say that you can't keep a flock of birds from flying over your head, but you can keep it from building a nest in your hair. That's the difference. Take a thought for example. A thought. One of the guys without hair looking at me like, what? So this temptation doesn't affect them at all. So you can't keep a thought from flashing through your mind. You can't keep from seeing something you shouldn't see, but you can keep it from building a nest right here in your head. You can keep from grabbing that thought and making it your own. So the temptation itself is not a sin, the giving in to temptation. As we said, there's diverse types of temptation. Basically two types of temptation in the Bible. One type of temptation is testing under trial. This word in the Bible indicates a test. Your faith is tested. And the temptation there is to disbelieve God in the midst of some test or trial. Boy, Satan always wants to make God the bad guy. He always wants to try to convince you that it's not worth it to serve God, God's not worth serving. So you have these trials of your faith. And then secondly, you find testing in the Bible. This is the solicitation to do evil. this is someone satan propositioning to you or giving you an opportunity to do evil we see that in genesis chapter 3 verses 1 through 6 now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field and he said to the woman yea hath god said so this was a a solicitation an offer to do evil same thing in matthew chapter 4 jesus was led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil And so we know that these temptations come and there's gonna be times when we're gonna be tempted to do evil. Now what's beautiful is if you look at John chapter one verse 13, let's read it. John chapter one verse 13, let's read it together, ready? 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. So this is an important fact for us to know. God never solicits you to do evil. God is never the one trying to get you to do wrong. The Bible says very clearly, God cannot be tempted with sin. And I've got a lot of verses here to talk about that, but we won't get into that tonight. God cannot be solicited to sin because there's no desire for sin in him. And he also never tries to get anyone else to sin. It's never God saying, why don't you do that sin? Why don't you go ahead? What God will do is allow Satan to tempt us. But God is never the one doing the tempting. Sometimes you'll be talking to someone, they said, well, God must have wanted me to because God allowed it to happen. No, no, no, God never wants us to sin. We see this temptation. If temptation doesn't come from God, where does it come from? And of course, let's look here at verse 14. But every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed. Now, of course, Satan is sometimes the, he's the one who is offering. He's the one who is organizing and soliciting, of course. What the Bible's trying to say here is the real problem is me. The real problem is I have lust in me that has desires and appetites. And Satan will only offer me what I already have an appetite for. So if we go fishing, and some of you guys in the room are big fishermen and good fishermen, if you're hunting saltwater fish or fishing for saltwater fish, it's a totally different tackle box than if you're hunting freshwater fish. And I grew up hunting freshwater. If I am fishing for bass, that's totally different lures than if I'm fishing for bluegill or crappie. because you have to entice the fish with what it has an appetite for. And each one of us are the same. We all have a sin nature, but each one of our sin natures is bent in a little bit different way. I know people that have a problem with theft, with stealing. Other people, that's never even crossed their mind, have no desire to steal. There's other people that are intensely tempted with physical lust and immorality. And other people are like, I don't even see why that's a problem. So we are all bent a little bit different way in our sin nature. You've got to understand, Satan's not omniscient, but he's studied people since the beginning of people. He has thousands of years of notes on how to tempt and deceive and get people to fall. Plus, Satan's not omniscient but he's got a horde of evil spirits that do his bidding for him and that can make him look like he's omniscient, he's not. But imagine having a big spy network and he's got a lot of information. I guarantee you Satan knows where your buttons are. Satan knows my buttons, he knows your buttons. He knows my levers, he knows yours. He knows my soft spots, he knows your soft spots. The question is, do you and I know our soft spots? Matter of fact, when it comes to child rearing, one thing that we try to encourage parents to do is every child simply has a mix of sin nature of you and your spouse. So my children have a mix of my sin nature and my wife's sin nature. And we know hers is very small and mine's very big. But it was almost like a joke when we were growing up. The kids would do something and I'd say, that's not me. I never did anything like that. She'd be like, yeah, that's me. And then there'd be times when she's like, I know that's not me. Yeah, that's me, I own that. And each child has a little bit different mix of sin nature. The wise parents get together and say, these are my soft spots and these are my soft spots. By the way, husband and wife talk to each other about that so you can protect each other. Amen. Husbands and wives, you have to know each other's sin issues. You have to be open about that so you can protect each other. And then we look at the children and say, our children are gonna be some mix of us, so let's teach them ahead of time what our generational sins are. So there are sins that are prevalent in every generation of my family, and sins that are prevalent in every generation of my wife's family, and so we can teach our kids, listen, our family has had this problem in the past. So you need to know what the Bible says about this, and you need to be especially careful in these areas. Doesn't that sound like a wise thing to do? And we have to protect each other. So the biggest issue with temptation is my sin nature, is your sin nature. If we had no lust, temptation would have no power. If we had no darkness, iniquity wouldn't be attractive. We are drawn to sin like the moth to the porch light. There's just something in us that gets drawn that way. And we need to understand how sin progresses and our soft spots so we can protect ourselves. Now the progression of sin is clearly outlined here in our scripture. Look at verses 14. But every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed, that's an important word, then when lust hath conceived it bringeth forth sin and sin when it is finished bringeth forth death. So let me give you a couple thoughts here and we'll go to the house. How does sin work? Number one, the drawing. The drawing. There is a drawing to sin. Whether it be just circumstances of life or the orchestration of Satan, we are put in a position where something, we see some light, like the moth sees the light, and there's some drawing to it. we sense that we are beginning to be drawn. The word drawn away literally means to drag forth. You remember the old cartoons and there's a pie sitting on the the windowsill and the smell of the pie comes over and hooks the person in the nose and the person begins floating The smell of the pie begins drawing it close to the pie. It's almost like that's how it works with us. We see something, we hear something, we're around something, and it's like we're beginning to get sucked into this thing. We're beginning to draw away to it. There's some sort of unseen gravity between our sin nature and this thing, some sort of magnetism that begins to pull us toward that. Our lust takes notice of the temptation and drags us toward it. Now let me stop right there. This is where we need to learn to nip temptation in the bud. When you sense that drawing, when you feel that pull, that magnetism, you don't have to wait till you get close to it. You don't have to go up and smell it and look at it real close and say, well, yeah, that really was a temptation. You want to stay as far away from it as possible. Because what I'm going to show you is if you wait too long, we've already lost the battle. See, we've lost the choice to say no long before we think we have. And now's the time that we say no, when this drawing begins. Secondly, we see the enticement. Enticement means to incite or provoke. The Word has the idea of starting a fire. It's just a small spark that kindles a large flame. we had some awesome fires at the men's retreat. And man, Patrick one time, Patrick was the savior, and started to crawl up a little bit to the side. And boy, Patrick leapt over there, and he seemed like, from where I was, it looked like he jumped over the fire, he didn't. But he leapt over the fire, began stomping it, and boy, Patrick the savior, he just dove right into it. And it was really cool. Now, we weren't in any danger, but he leapt right to action. But it only takes a small spark to burn down a city. Think about what's going on in California today, out west, the fires they've had. Simple spark. And it's a simple spark that'll burn down your marriage. Simple spark will burn your future. Now here's what happens. The longer you focus on the temptation, the strength of the temptation grows. So the Greek word for entice literally means to entrap. Watch this, your lust draws you, the fire of desire begins to burn, and like a boa constrictor tightening ever so slowly, with every breath, it tightens. Every time you breathe out, it tightens. And you get a little bit more breath, and you breathe out, it tightens. And the longer you stay in that moment of drawing and enticement, if you stay there too long, you've already lost the battle. Like a boa constrictor, temptation slowly tightens, robbing you of the will to fight off the seduction. The longer you think about it, the longer you meditate, the longer you say, well, could I, well, I wonder if, you know, would it be so bad if I just, every second in that phase, you're losing the will to fight. And you have seconds to recognize what's happening and say no. before you're done. So we see number one, the drawing. Number two, the enticement. Number three, the conception. Lust conceives. If you stay in the presence of temptation long enough, you will sin. It's only a matter of time. See, lust gives birth to sin. The only way to keep the birth of sin from happening is to kill the lust, to remove yourself from the situation and stop the enticement before you get trapped. the illustration of giving birth. It's almost like you're pregnant with sin. You haven't sinned yet, but it's starting to grow within you. And with every minute, it gets bigger and bigger and bigger until now you give birth to the sin. And it's your fault. It's not the devil's fault. It's not the situation's fault. It's not the person who tempted you's fault. It's my fault, it's your fault. because it's our sin and our lust that enticed us. Unresisted temptation begins the birthing process. As I said, you have a brief window of grace once the temptation begins. If you play with sin in your mind or entertain it in your heart, you will sin. You have to remove yourself from that situation. You have to go get around people that will change your mind and your heart. You have to do something drastic. There's a reason why Joseph, when Potiphar's wife grabbed his coat, there's a reason why he dropped the coat and ran. He had a moment. And if he would have stayed there a moment too long, that story would have ended very differently. And it's better to drop everything and run. It's better to spend two years in prison with God's blessing than to fall into that sin and lose the blessing of God and have your story in very differently. And so we see the process, the drawing, the enticement, the conception. Hesitation is defeat. When it comes to temptation, hesitation is defeat. We must act quickly, swiftly, sternly. But if we don't, sin occurs. Once lust becomes a raging fire, we will allow it to consume us. Once you consent to the sin, now you make a way to indulge it. You excuse it and act upon it. And usually what happens is you don't just sin a little bit. Once you dive in, you dive in wholeheartedly. The alcoholic that takes a drink, he doesn't just take a drink and say, oops, I made a mistake. He takes a drink and goes on the binge. Sometimes for weeks. The person that sins, they don't just sin once. They'll say, well, I've already done it, so why not do it again? And why not do it again? And why not do it again? And next thing you know, you're in a world of hurt. So we have the drawing begins, enticement happens, lust conceived, sin occurs, and then sadly, number five, death follows. Look what it says in verse 15. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin, and sin, when it is, what's the next word? Finished, bringeth forth death. People say, boy, preacher, I'm in this sin, it's not bothering me at all. Well, it's not done yet. So I got a control of it, I can handle it. It doesn't have control of me, it's not finished yet. It's not done yet. And so we've got to understand this situation. Sin is not the result of temptation, but our surrender to it. The drawing, the enticement, the conception, a sin occurs, death follows, and now it starts all over again. You think about Achan in Joshua chapter seven, what the Bible say, I saw, I coveted, I took. Another way to explain the same situation. He saw it, it inspired some lust in him, he acted on that lust, sin, his whole family ended up dying. So what's the solution to temptation? Look at verse 16. Do not err, my beloved brethren. God begging us, listen, don't make a mistake here. Do not commit spiritual suicide because you don't understand this, how this works. Don't destroy your future, your family. Don't go through weeks, months, years of suffering because you don't understand the simple process we just talked about. Do not err, my beloved brethren. So, what's the answer? And I'll give these to you quickly. You can write these down and study them later. Number one, remember that God is a gracious and generous God. Remember that God is gracious and generous. Look at verse 17. Satan always wants to make God the bad guy. But when you remember, listen, God did not give us these rules to to hurt us or to imprison us, He's a kind and generous God. Everything He does is from a place of love. If God tells me not to do it, there's a good reason I can trust God. I can trust Him. And so the first thing to do is you'll trust God. Let me tell you what happens. When you give in to sin, you'll start making excuses for it. Well, is it really that bad? I mean, come on, is it really that bad? I'm not hurting anybody. It's just between, it's my thing. You don't have to do it. I'm not trying to be an example to anybody. This is just my thing. Not hurt, this is what happens, we begin making excuses for it. The number one thing you can do is to agree with God and say if God says it's wrong, he's a good and generous God, I can trust him. I don't have to understand why. Number two, realize that God saved your soul and he has your best interests at heart. We see that in verse 18. Of his own will he beget us with the word of truth that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. So God saved us. He's got our best interests at heart. Again, we can trust God. Number three, recall that we must control our lusts and feelings in order to live righteously. Look at verses 19 and 20. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath, For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. If we're gonna follow God, if we're gonna live righteously, then we can't allow our emotions to reign. We can't allow ourselves just to give in to temptation. We've gotta, by God's grace, get victory. You know, one of the great sins that we have is sinning with our mouth. We sin with our mouth. We say, well, it's not like we're doing heroin. No, but gossiping is a sin, a hurtful sin, deadly sin. Cursing, taking the name of God in vain, losing your temper, yelling and screaming, saying mean and hurtful things, those are not Christ-like. And we cannot give in to even those temptations. Boy, and I know I'm preaching to the choir here tonight. Are we past it? Well, I don't smoke, and I don't drink, and I don't, thank God for that, but dear friend, we're trying to work with the sins of the heart. The deep sins of the heart. We've gotta stop these things. And if we stop it here, it never comes out here. How do we overcome sin? Number four, remain obedient to the word of God. We see that in verses 21 and 25. How do we overcome temptation? Number five, reject hypocrisy. Look at verses 26 and 27. If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is in vain. Well, that's pretty hard language. The Bible says if you think you're a good Christian, you think you're religious, and you don't have control over this thing, you're just deceiving yourself. And every Christian in the room has to acknowledge that this tongue is one of the hardest things to control. Matter of fact, James chapter three goes in, it's a world of iniquity, it's a flame of fire. No man can tame it, but God can. But this is, your tongue is one of the tests of your Christianity. How do you speak when you get upset? How do you speak when you get angry? How do you talk to people when they disappoint you? All of these things. Look at verse 27. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the world. So we have two more proofs of pure religion. One is to minister to those who can't help you. Help those who can't help you back. How do you treat people that can't do anything for you? We go to the nursing home. They never put a penny on the offering plate. They're never going to mow the lawn or vacuum the carpet. We bring bus kids. They not only don't help, but they clog the toilets and write on the walls. See, these are things. How do we treat people that can't help us back? And then he also says, keep yourself unspotted from the world. And sometimes people say, oh, you're one of those churches that just always talks about sin. Well, sin's kind of a big deal. If we look at the cross and see the length that Jesus had to go to to cleanse us from sin, he must have some pretty strong opinions about living in it after he died to save us from it. And so in this portion of scripture we have three proofs of what God would call pure religion. The tongue, visiting, ministering to those that can't help you back, and doing what you can to not go back into the same sins that Jesus died to save you from. And what I put under here is we've got to reject hypocrisy. And this is something that all of us have to work on. Do you do the same things you condemn other people for doing? Do you say the same things you condemn other people for saying? Do you act in a way that you would condemn someone else for acting? In Romans chapter two, if you say that someone shouldn't steal, are you stealing? One of the dangers committed Christians is you don't change your beliefs, you still agree it's wrong, but if we're not careful we will make allowances for us personally and not give those allowances to other people. Our lives will begin to look differently privately than we say they should look publicly. And hypocrisy is always deadly. Now we're trying to follow a perfect savior and live a perfect book, so there's always gonna be some distance between what we know to do and what we're doing. Amen? We're never gonna get it perfect. But we can never be comfortable and make excuses for not trying. There's a lot we could say about that. This is how temptation works. I want you to think of this pattern when you see it in your life. Next time you feel that pull, that drawing, something in you gets pulled to something, notice it and stop it. And there's never been more temptation in the world because each one of us carry these around. If you've got one of these, It's a main line for Satan to steal your attention every day. You understand that these things are engineered to steal your attention from whatever you're doing at the moment. Every ding, every buzz, every ring is made to draw your eyes and attention. And there's all kinds of ways that you can just be going about your day and get tempted with something. Driving down the road, you got a problem with anger? Driving down the road, someone cuts you off? Start praying for them. Lord, I hope this person gets a flat tire. No, don't do that. And if we go back and study this portion of scripture, may God help us from getting caught up in temptation. and becoming one of those shipwrecks on the side of the shore.