How To Deal with Temptation Wisely - Part 2

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Wednesday, March 30th. Being in a group of like-minded believers is essential to overcoming temptation. Learn why there's safety in numbers as you listen to part two of How to Deal with Temptation Wisely. Would you say that you yield more often than you resist?

What is it about that particular temptation that motivates you to want to give in no matter what the Word of God says about it? I wonder if you've ever identified those particular areas of your life in which you know that you are vulnerable, most vulnerable in those areas. I wonder if you've ever thought about the times, the moments in your daily life when you're the most vulnerable. And the truth is all of us have one or more weak areas we have to watch. All of us have those moments when we are less strong than we are at other times. How do you respond?

And I wonder if you've ever even thought about the idea. And then the question comes, what is your reaction? Is your first reaction to blame God, someone else, your circumstance, who you are, your background, your past? Is your reaction to blame or is it that you're willing to assume responsibility realizing that nobody forced you, nobody made you yield the temptation, it was a choice that you made?

Well, oftentimes we get in trouble because we don't know how to deal with things. And one of the most important things we have to learn to deal with is temptation for the simple reason it's always going to be with us. And so what I want to talk about is how to deal with temptation wisely.

Now listen carefully. In order to deal with it wisely, I must build a defense against those times of temptation. So I want you to turn, if you will, to 1 Corinthians chapter 10.

And I want us to read just the 13th verse, which is loaded with truth. The 13th verse of 1 Corinthians chapter 10, and Paul writing about it says, well, in verse 12, he says, Therefore, let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall, which is a warning about what he's about to say in verse 13. Because anytime you think you're above temptation, you're headed for a fall.

Anytime that you think you're so mature and so strong within yourself, you're headed for trouble. Listen to what he says in this awesome promise in verse 13. No temptation has overtaken you, but such as is common to man. And God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you're able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you'll be able to endure it. Now what he's saying is simply this. All the temptations that we face, we're not the first ones to face it.

They're common to everybody. Then he says, But God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what God knows you can bear, that is, when you trust him, rely upon him to enable you to bear it. That would not be applicable to a person who's not a Christian. You're on your own.

You're doing your own thing. You're living your life apart from God without God, and therefore the only thing you've got to deal with with your temptation is your own human strength. And you already know by now that that is absolutely inadequate and insufficient, and you will falter and fall. He says God is faithful, who will not let you be tempted beyond what you're able, but will with the temptation make a way of escape. Listen, he did not say he would remove it.

Sometimes he will, sometimes he won. And so with that in mind, I want us to think about how do you deal with temptation wisely. And the first thing we said is, remember there's a divine control. God's put a control on it. If I'm going to build a defense, I've got to know that my God is involved in defending me. So he's put a limitation on what Satan can do in our life. So number one, number two, determined to resist temptation in the power of the Holy Spirit.

I don't mean after you get into the heat of it. I don't mean when you're down the road ten miles into the middle of it, I'm saying before you're tempted, determine God in the power of the Holy Spirit. I choose to resist temptation. I choose to be obedient to you.

I know I'm going to be tempted. I know I'll have to face that, but I choose to be obedient to you. I choose to resist temptation. I cannot do it within my own strength.

I'm choosing to do it in the power of the Holy Spirit, and you said He would enable me to live a godly life. So I determined, step number two, I determined to resist that temptation no matter what it is. Three, number three, immediately focus on the big picture. When temptation comes, immediately focus on the big picture.

We said, you know what, don't put a telephoto lens on. You'll get it right down so that that's all you think about is the pleasure, not the pain. So number three is you want to focus on the big picture. Now, I want to give you some questions to ask under that point. You're focused on the big picture. In other words, you're not narrowed down to pure pleasure. You're asking some questions.

Number one, what question you want to ask is this. Is this temptation a specific violation of the Word of God? Do I know this temptation is a violation of the Scripture? What you've done, you've got God in it again now, and see, when you have the big picture, you're not narrowed down to just pleasure and no consequence. Now you're thinking about it wisely. Is there a specific Scripture that tells me this is a violation of Scripture?

The second question you want to ask under that point is this. What are the consequences if I yield to this sin? Now, when we think about the consequences, what are the consequences now? What are the consequences in the future? What are the consequences to others? And what are the consequences to my personal life if I yield to this temptation? Very important. That's why you've got to keep the big picture, because one of Satan's tactics is get your mind off the consequences.

Get it on pleasure. Get it off the consequences. But the big picture says I'm going to ask these questions.

All right? The third question under this issue of the big picture is this. Am I prepared to pay the price? Am I prepared to pay the price for this particular pleasure in life? As I look at the consequences, am I prepared to pay the consequence? Am I prepared to, whatever it's going to cost me, am I willing to do that? When I look at the possible consequences, am I willing to pay that for this particular thing of pleasure?

The next question under that is this. Is there some other way, a good way, a right way, to get this need or this desire met in my life? Is there some other way? And listen, whenever there's a need, no matter what it is, no matter what the desire is, if it's of God, He's going to show you how to have your need met the right way. It may not be exactly what you want, but you know what?

That's not the issue. The issue is how do I get these needs met and still live a godly life? If I'm not interested in living a godly life, then go to it. But pay the consequence, pay the fare. It's going to cost you.

The consequences are terrible in some situations and circumstances. Now, we are back to those ten points necessary. We've said, number one, we want to remember that everything is under God's control. Secondly, we're going to determine to resist in the power of the Holy Spirit. Number three, we're going to keep the big picture.

Oh, that's the big picture. Now, number four, stop and identify what are the areas of your life that you know are areas of weakness. Everybody's got one or more. You say, well, I don't have any.

Well, you better go back and read 1 Corinthians 10, not verse 13, but verse 12, lest you fall. What are those areas of weakness? You just know that it's best not to head in that direction because you know where that leads you. It's best not to get to thinking about that. It's best not to get to looking at that. It's best not to handle that because that doesn't, you know you're heading in the wrong direction. And so what you have to ask is, what are those areas?

And then identify them. And ask the Lord, Lord, help me to be sensitive. Help me to be sensitive to these areas.

Not just tell me what they are, be sensitive. The next point is this. And that is, develop an awareness to your weak moments. You remember the word I gave you, I've given it to you several times, H-A-L-T. Be careful that you don't get too hungry, too angry, too lonely or too tired.

Satan loves to get us into any one of all of those. If you get real hungry, real angry, real lonely and real tired, you're in real trouble. I'm telling you, that little halt has made a difference in a lot of people's lives. A lot of people have said to me over these last few years, that has really helped me because I realized in one of those, and usually they don't tell me which one it is, none of my business. Usually they'll say, in one of these I realize that's when I'm the most vulnerable to doing the wrong thing. Don't get too hungry, too angry, too lonely or too tired. Now that may not be the only moments in your life, but what you have to ask is what are those moments that you feel the most vulnerable, that you feel the most needy, that you feel like you just want this, I want that, I want him, I want her. As long as we know what those moments are, and as long as we know what those areas are, we already have some great building blocks in our defense because we know what to look for and we know when to look for them and what happens is we understand what's going on inside of these minds of ours, these emotions in our physical bodies.

And so the truth is when people deny any of that, won't face it, won't look at it, what happens is Satan just trips you up, trips you up, trips you up. If you understand the areas and understand those moments, you're a long ways ahead because you know what to look for and you know when to be extremely cautious. Then number six, now watch this one. Number six, visualize your success when being tempted. Now what does that mean?

I know that the world uses that word in a way that you and I will not use it, but the truth is it's a legitimate word. And here's what I mean by that. I'm going to visualize myself, that means I'm going to in my mind I'm going to foresee myself in a similar situation as I was the last time when I failed, but this time I'm going to see myself as saying, thank you, Lord, that you're adequate. Thank you, God, you know how to meet this need in my life. Thank you, Lord, that you provide every single thing I need. I just want to thank you that I love you more than I love this. I want to thank you, Lord, that I am adequate in the Holy Spirit. I want to thank you I don't have to do this.

I want to thank you that you're living on the inside of me. What you're doing is you are vocalizing. You are verbalizing your faith, your faith in what you're going to trust God to do in your life and how you're going to respond. Listen, that is a powerful, powerful, powerful mechanism for building a defense against temptation and against sin.

So visualizing is very important in building that defense mechanism. Then, number seven, make yourself accountable to somebody. If you have an area that you're just weak in, you have an area that you know that you just have a difficult time. You just think, I want to, but I don't. I want to, but I can't. I wish I could.

I hope I do. Find, listen, some very, very loyal, devoted friend of yours with whom you can share the deepest, most intimate things of your heart and say, you know what? Here's an air of weakness in my life and I need some help and what I need you, I need you to ask me how I'm doing. I need to know that I'm going to have to tell you the truth about what I did or what I didn't do, what I had or what I didn't have, where I went or where I didn't go.

If you really want to overcome it, whatever it is, you make yourself accountable to somebody, that person can be a great help to you. But you've got to be honest. You've got to want to be healed, want to be freed, want to be liberated, want to have victory in your life. And then, another very, very important part and that's this. That's the Word of God. If you want to build a defense against temptation, if you will read this book every day and you will talk to the Father every day, this book is like an anchor. Now listen, let's say that this is the anchor and it is a spiritual anchor.

Well, as long as I am, if that's the anchor and I'm chained to the anchor, I can only get arm's length. That's as far as I can get because no matter what I'm facing in life, whatever the situation, whatever the circumstance, there's a passage of Scripture in here that'll relate to it. And so, what I want to do is I especially want to underline and mark those verses that relate to the area in which I am the weakest or maybe the moments that have something to do with the moments in which I'm weakest. Read the Psalms. Listen to David talk about his temptations and his trials and his failures. Find those verses. But you've got to stay in God's Word.

Now, I don't mean you have to pull out dictionaries and encyclopedias and concordances and look up a bunch. I'm not talking about a Bible study. I'm talking about you reading the Scripture and asking God to fill up your cup today. Father, today I want you to speak to my heart. Strengthen me today. I want to talk to you about what's going on in my life today. Here's what I'm going to be facing.

Here's who I'm going to meet. Here's what I'm going to do. And Lord, you know that today, today I'm going to be over there and God, you know, that's a tough place for me and I'm just asking you to strengthen me.

Here's what you said in your Word. What you're doing is you're building strength into your mind. Listen, if you want to flush junky stuff out of your mind, fill it with God's Word because what the Word of God does, it just flushes that stuff right out. But I've got to want to. I've got to desire to do it. I can't make preparation for sin and make preparation to disobey God and expect Him to clean up my life.

Now let me, that brings me to something I want to talk about. For example, I know that if I don't want to eat ice cream, don't put it in my freezer. If I don't want to eat cookies, don't buy them and bring them home because if I put strawberry chocolate or butter pecan or peach in my freezer, I'm going to have some no matter what. I know that I will. So if I want to get rid of it, don't buy it, don't bring it home. Now we'd all agree to that, right?

Amen? Now let's get a little bit more personal. I don't want to look at nudie, junky, ugly, ungodly, sinful, wicked stuff on TV, then don't have the program on my television.

Now watch this. When you, for example, order a dish so you can get lots and lots of things, usually what they'll do, they'll give you a whole bunch of stuff up front because you got signed up and you had them to place it in your home. If you look through there and see what's on there, if you're a godly person, you want to walk obedient before God, you'll call them and say, I want you to remove the following things because they put them on there to entice you. Listen, if you don't want junk in your life, don't let it in your house because there are a lot of things you don't have to have. In other words, you can have that without having everything. Decide how you want to live. You want to live a godly life?

In other words, if you want to keep your body healthy, you don't drink, you don't smoke, you don't overeat, you don't take drugs, you don't do a lot of things. Why? In other words, you don't just keep some handy just in case. You don't want that in your life.

You know it's destructive. And the same thing is true about our mind, our heart and our spirit. We don't want it in our life, don't let it in there.

So we have to be careful. We want to be anchored to the Word of God. And then, number nine, one of the wisest things you can do that's really helped me and helped a lot of people, lots of folks have told me this, before you get out of the bed in the morning, you just say, Lord, I want to put on the armor today. And if you don't know what the armor is in the sixth chapter of the book of Ephesians, you'll think about how God so beautifully designed Paul to do this.

He said, he didn't put it in this order, but this is the way I say it to myself. Put on the helmet of salvation that protects what I think, the breastplate of righteousness that protects my emotions. My loins gird about with truth so that I'm walking in truth and not in error. I want to know the truth about things. Feet shove with the preparation of the gospel of peace.

I want to be a good messenger, not a bad messenger. I want to take the sword of the Spirit. I want God's Word working in my heart during the day.

I want to take the shield of faith. So when one of those fiery darts of temptation comes, all I have to do is say, thank you, Lord, that I can just send that right on by. Just let that go right on by. And if some temptation hits you, you just say, Lord, I'll let that go by. I choose to let that go by. You don't think I'll just let that go by.

You don't have to stop the darts. Let them go by. And no matter how accurately Satan may fire them at you, you have the shield of faith covered by your faith. You're trusting God to protect you, trusting God to guide you through these times. And then one last thing I would say.

Number ten, that's this. Affirm the power of the Holy Spirit in your life. He will enable you to do every single thing we've said because every single point is as scriptural as it can be straight from the Word of God that will help you no matter what you're facing in life. That's the way you handle temptation wisely. You deal with it, understanding what it's all about, how it works, where it came from, what it is, the nature of it, the distinction between that and trials. You understand that, and then you build a defense.

You build that defense mechanism, and you watch God begin to give you victory in your life in ways that you have never known before. Thank you for listening to part two of How to Deal with Temptation Wisely. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.