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This edition of Ask the Pastor features Tim Hebbert and Brad Kilthau.
Tim Hebbert
Today, the question is, "I think we can all agree that the temptation to sin against God are numerous and in our society there is an overwhelming amount of media, entertainment and suggestive advertisements to lure us into sin. How do we deal with this as believers?" And I'm first of all thinking of that concept that we live, that we're in the world, but we're not of the world. And unless we're living in a plastic bubble, or we've segregated ourselves from society, the reality of it is we're going to be looking face to face into the eyes of temptation, of the allure of sin. And the devil is really good about making it look tenderizing and beautiful. When actually what it is, is it's dark and it's destructive. So I want to talk about a couple things that I always think about with this. And then Brad's going to bring some scripture to underscore a lot of that. But I want to tell you out there today, if you're feeling the temptation of certain sins, the best thing that you can do is run in the other direction. I sometimes think we forget what the word 'repent' really means. It doesn't mean, "say you're sorry." It means, "take another course, move the direction of your life." It's better to avoid the things that are going to tempt you than to think for a second that you can face up to those things over and over and over again and beat the temptation. Because what happens is we begin to obsess about sin and it's one of the great blessings I have. My wife tells me that I don't overthink anything, Brad. So I don't focus on that as much. I really want to focus on my relationship with Jesus Christ. But there are times everybody is tempted. I think that we have bought in, in some Christian circles to this thought that God tests us, but He never puts temptation in front of us. But have you heard that one, Brad? People think that God is putting that temptation in front of you. He is absolutely not ever going to do that to you. Why would he do that? Does he allow us to become tested in our life over things? Yes, but one of the ways to pass a test of temptation is to move completely away from it. I heard Pastor John Maxwell read this at a Promise Keeper event. Brad, this has been like 28 years ago.
Brad Kilthau
Yeah, it's been a while since those happened.
Tim Hebbert
And it stuck with me ever since. And he was speaking that day and in a conference for men about the allure of sexual immorality and adultery and the temptation of those things. And he read this poem, and it was written by a woman by the name of Portia Nelson. I guess it's a poem. It's entitled, There's a Hole in My Sidewalk. And it goes like this, chapter 1, "I walk down the street, there's a deep hole in the sidewalk, and I fall in. I'm lost. I'm helpless. It isn't my fault. It takes forever to find a way out." Chapter 2, or we could say Day 2. Day two, I walk down the same street, there's a deep hole in the sidewalk. I pretend I don't see it, I fall in again. I can't believe I'm in the same place, but it isn't my fault. It still takes a long time to get out." Day 3, "I walk down the same street, there is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I see it, it's there. I still fall in it. It's a habit. Now my eyes are open. I know where I am. It's my fault. I get out immediately." Day 4, "I walk down the same street, there's a deep hole in the sidewalk. I walk around it." Day 5, "I walked down another street." Seems like we ought to learn to take day five and move it up right behind day one. If you're out there today and you're struggling with some sin in your life, I don't know what it is. And sometimes when we're talking about sin, we tend to look at the big sins and ignore the small ones that are actually as destructive as the big ones. But if you're struggling with temptation in this media, sexualized, me first, consumer oriented world we live in, if you're struggling with those things, God's saying, "walk down a different street." And that street, I heard it's a modern telling that somebody wrote of the 23rd Psalm. When it talks about "He leads me in the path of righteousness." The righteousness that He's leading you and I down today friends, is the footsteps of His son Jesus. And when we keep our eyes focused on who Jesus is, what he's done for us, what he wants to continue to do with us, and we keep our eyes focused there, all of a sudden all the allure of the things of this world are in the side mirror. They're not in the front view of where we're at. But when we obsess on those things, it's easy to begin to look on those things. I say, once we examine and see what we're struggling with, it's time to trust God's plan for us. Look to Jesus and move in a different direction.
Brad Kilthau
That's exactly right, Tim. We are to look to Jesus, and to look to Jesus means getting into his word. And we can see that the Lord speaks to us so clearly about this issue and struggle that all of us deal with temptation. Temptation to be led into sin. And one of the passages is, looking at Luke 4:1-13, of that time of when Jesus was in the wilderness and Satan was tempting him. Now, of course we need to know that not all temptation comes from Satan. We can't give him all the credit. Sometimes it just comes from our flesh itself. But we need to recognize the arsenal, the tools of Satan. And in doing so, that'll help us to stand strong against temptation. When we look at that very familiar account, Satan tempted Jesus in three temptations. First of all, he was saying, "well turn that stone into bread." The next time it was, "all the kingdoms of the world can be yours if you just bow down and worship me." And then finally taking him to the top of the pinnacle of the temple and saying, "jump off of this," this 450 drop that you would have. "But the angels are going to catch you up and preserve you and save you." So when we look at those three temptations, we learn some good things again. And that is, first of all, that Satan has three general categories of temptation. The first one is, he tempts us to start to think that the father doesn't love us. That's why he was saying about the stone being turned into bread. He was saying, "Jesus, oh, you're out here in the wilderness. You haven't eaten for 40 days. What kind of father do you have that hasn't provided food for you?" And so that's where that temptation thought comes from. Second of all, he says to just worship me and then all of these kingdoms of the world will be yours. Well, what's he saying? He's saying, "well, don't trust in the plan of the Father. In fact, you don't have to go His way, You don't have to do His plan. Here's a shortcut, just worship me. You don't have to go the way of the cross." And then finally, he has another category, and that is he wants us to doubt the protection of the father. And we can see that in every temptation that he brings against us. You see, Satan is, he's tactical. And we need to learn that, because what Satan will do often is he will attack us after we've experienced a great time of blessing. We find that again in Luke 4, because when you look back in Luke 3, Jesus as we know, was just baptized in the Jordan River. And remember what happened as he came up out of the water? The Holy Spirit descended upon him like a dove. And the Father spoke from heaven and said, "This is my son in whom I am well pleased, my beloved son." I mean, what a beautiful blessed experience. And then, the next thing that happens is Jesus finds himself in this place of temptation by Satan. That's the tactic of Satan. When there's a blessing or something good that happens in our life, he immediately is there to lead us into sin. Whenever God moves, Satan moves. We also need to know that Satan comes after us when we are vulnerable. Sometimes when we're struggling with an illness in our life, maybe the loss of a loved one, maybe financial woes or whatever. He's watching us, and he knows that when we are in those positions of vulnerability, he recognizes that. And that's when he comes and starts whispering false things and temptations into our ears. And then also you got to know that Satan's very practical. I think we see that in verses 5-6 especially. Satan is logical. Again, telling Jesus, "just take a shortcut. You don't have to do this the hard way. You don't have to go the way of the cross." He's a great theologian. He knows the Bible probably better than any of us. And some people have a hard time believing that. But you got to remember Satan, he graduated from the greatest seminary of all, from heaven, even though he doesn't live by the word of God. But he knows it. And he tries to come down to us and use this logic and practical thinking to lead us astray. And we've got to recognize those things. We've got to recognize that when we're going into those areas, when we see these things happening in our lives, that that's Satan. And we need to call upon the Lord. We need to get close to the Lord. We need to abide in the Lord. We need to study His word. We need to know what the word really says so that Satan is not manipulating the word of God and leading us astray. And here's another thing we need to do as Christians: we need to start standing our ground and quit cowering to the messages of the world that Satan is putting out there. Quit cowering to the immorality of our world. Quit cowering to being afraid that if we speak up for Christ and speak the truth that we're going to be mocked. We've got to keep in mind that greater is He who is living within us as believers than he who is in the world. And we need to stand against the woes of Satan.
Tim Hebbert
As you're talking about that, Brad, it took me right back to the beginning of Genesis. Adam and Eve in the garden, and Satan comes with a voice of reason. "Did God say that you can't eat these things? No, no, no, no." And then they begin to correct him. "Oh, that's not what He meant. He just doesn't want you to be like Him." And he challenges them. He tries it with Jesus, and he gets the beat down. I refer to him in my sermons a lot as 'the coward,' because he doesn't ever come at us when we're strong and empowered, feeling strong in who we are. He waits till there's a weak, vulnerable moment. And that's where he attacks from.
Brad Kilthau
That's right.
Tim Hebbert
But we have the confidence and hope in Jesus that he's conquered him already. And we don't have to listen.
Brad Kilthau
And to even add to our thoughts here, Tim. I think when you look at that passage and you get to verse 13, it says, "Now, when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from Jesus until an opportune time." I think one thing we want to finish up by sharing with our listeners, is that temptation is seasonal. We might have victory over him in one temptation. We might have success and we've got through it. But Satan will be back. He's relentless, just like he came back at Jesus towards the end, as we watched as he's going to the cross. There's Satan working in those scenes behind. And he is relentless. He will continue to come back. He's not going to look at us like, "oh, you're a strong Christian and you know the Bible really well. I'm going to leave you alone." No, he'll just go back and change his tactics, and he'll watch for another place to get us. And he will be back. So anyway, this is something I think when we look at temptation like this, just as you were saying earlier, Tim, with these things that every one of us deal with. We can't escape this, so we need to learn how to deal with it. How to walk in the way that the Lord tells us through those times of temptation.
Tim Hebbert
I think the thing to remind ourselves too, if we falter, don't be like Adam and Eve even hide in the bushes. Bring it to the Lord. He doesn't want us to live in the prison of something that we've done wrong.
Brad Kilthau
That's right. 1 John 1:9, "confess that sin. He is faithful in the small and righteous."