Welcome to the Kerwin Baptist Church broadcast today. Our desire is for the Word of God to be spread throughout the world so that all may know Christ.
Join us now for a portion of one of our services here at Kerwin Baptist Church located in Kernersville, North Carolina. And of all the giants, this quite possibly might be the biggest. The giant of temptation.
In fact, it's so big that I might obviously spend two weeks on this. And two separate things on temptation, but I might spend two weeks on this. Temptation is huge. James chapter 1, look at verse 2 if you will. James says, My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations or divers temptations.
We obviously for those that are new, it doesn't mean that you can't go scuba diving. It simply means diverse means different kinds of temptation. All right. Notice verse 3, knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. Look at verse 12. Blessed is the man that endureth temptation.
That word endure means to go through it without it changing you. We endure 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. Before I pray, let me explain something very quickly. Many people will say, I heard an individual one time say, well I believe God's tempting me.
Listen to me. God does not tempt. God tests.
He'll test you. But he doesn't tempt you. God does not use something bad and tempts you with it.
That would be against his character. If you're being tempted with something that's wrong, that's of Satan. But God does sometimes test us. Whether we will do right in a certain situation. Whether we'll make the right decisions. God never tempts.
He only tests. Let's pray. Father, I pray as we deal with this giant today that our folks would see how big this giant really is. And Lord I just pray that you'd give victory to our people on this matter of temptation.
In your name we pray. Amen. You know the word temptation brings different thoughts and pictures to each of us. Some people, maybe a hot fudge sundae is temptation to you.
For some, maybe, I don't know why you're laughing right now. For some, maybe it's a Krispy Kreme donut. For some, maybe us, say a businessman that's under pressure, maybe a corner bar is his temptation. Maybe for some here it would be a fantasy of someone at work is your temptation. It could be someone I've dealt with people that did a lot of traveling and different things.
Maybe it's a movie at a motel room. That's a temptation. For some it could be a different addiction. Maybe an alcohol addiction. Maybe a nicotine addiction. For some it could be, even for some of our young people like teenagers, maybe a girlfriend is a temptation or maybe a wrong type of crowd is a temptation. For some it could be a magazine rack at a store. For others it could be an internet when you have availability to it. I don't know.
There's always different things that tempts different people. But I want to ask you a question here this morning. Actually, I'd like to answer it for you.
And it is this. Preacher, why keep trying? Why keep trying to overcome what has defeated me so many times?
Why keep trying? Why should I even struggle with this anymore, preacher? I've gone to the altar. I don't know how many times. I've told God I'm sorry.
I don't know how many times. I've felt guilty. I've felt wretched.
I've felt rotten. I continually do something. Then I feel bad about it. I know it's wrong. And I say, God forgive me. And within a matter of sometimes hours, I'm right back doing the same thing. Why should I even keep fighting?
I've dealt with that with a lot of people in an office. Why should I even try? I want to give you some reasons before we actually get into the message today of why you ought to keep trying. Look at verse 12, if you will. It says, Blessed is the man that endureth temptation. For when he's tried, he shall receive the crown of life. Why should I keep trying, preacher?
Well, I want you to notice this. Number one, a defeating habit in your life will rob you of the confidence that you have in the power of God to give victory over sin. Look at me. When you quit fighting a fight and you say, well, there's just something that's got me and I can't get victory over it.
Listen to me. God has robbed you of your confidence in Christ. You see, Christ is able to give you victory. He's promised that we can access victory through Him in God's word.
But if we quit trying, it's going to rob us of the power and the confidence that we have in Him. Can I say this? That a sinful habit will destroy your desire to share your faith. You see, when something has you and you can't get victory over it, you feel guilty, you feel rotten, you feel dirty. And there's no desire now for you to go out and share the gospel with others and share what Christ can do for them when in your own heart you question what He can do for you. A sinful habit, if you quit trying and if you give up the fight and you say, I'm just not going to try anymore, it would literally rob you of any desire you would have to share Christ with others. Had an individual years ago, had a particular habit in his life and he had a friend of his at the hospital and he said, really, I can't go up and witness to him.
I said, why? He says, because I have this habit in my life and that man knows I have this habit and I don't want to look like a hypocrite. I mean, that totally robbed that individual of the opportunity to go share the gospel, maybe win that person to the Lord because of a defeating habit in his life. Do you know that overcoming an addiction or a habit, that makes you want to share God with others? You see, if you don't fight the battle and you give up, it's going to make you not want to share the gospel, but if you keep at it and God gives you victory, that's going to make you desire to tell others. I'm going to tell you something, somebody that's in a lifestyle that's wrong or wicked and they get saved and get right with God, man, they can't wait to go tell others about what God's done. I've heard Brother Joe tell this story for years about winning Mark Potts to the Lord and man, Mark first thing he did, took Brother Joe to a trailer, had every pot head and drug head in it.
And he said, I want you to tell them. I'm going to tell you something, it's a desire when God gives you victory and you see that God forgives you of your sin, that makes you want to go out and tell others. That's why you keep trying. That's why you keep fighting. Can I say this, that not dealing with a habit will lead to a hardened heart. You say, why should I keep fighting temptation? Because if you don't, your heart is going to get hard. You see, right now you feel bad and right now you feel guilty and you say, but I keep trying to overcome it and I ask God to forgive me, but I just can't give victory. So listen to me, dear friend, if you stop trying before long, you're not going to feel guilty anymore and you're not going to feel wrong anymore. And now it's not even going to touch your heart. You're not going to have any conscience about it. And the Bible says our conscience can get seared with a hot iron. We're not sensitive anymore to God.
There are some people that have given up the fight that now they don't want to fight anymore and never will again because they don't even feel wrong for their sin anymore. I often use this as an illustration. When I went to Bible college, we obviously, I lived in a dorm and I went to two conservative Christian colleges at that point. And we weren't allowed to have TV in our dorms at all. And the one college was really liberal. It had a dating parlor with a TV in it that everybody could gather and watch like a ball game or something.
You know, Jack and Tana went to that liberal college with me. I mean, it had a TV actually in the college building, but the other college, they didn't have anything like that. You know, I mean, once a year after church on Sunday night, this college would pipe in cable and let you watch the football game on a Sunday night at that other college. That's the only reason any kind of TV was led into that campus. Well, you'd go three months, not see anything on TV. Just, you know, you found other stuff to do. And when I would come home at Christmas time, I'd watch TV. And man, I would sit here and think, I cannot believe how filthy TV has gotten.
Whisper: medium.en / 2023-08-06 13:40:21 / 2023-08-06 13:44:30 / 4