Kerwin Baptist Church Daily Broadcast

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 in three months. Man, there's a cuss word to every other word and just, you know, the constant sexual references that are pushed at you.

And I thought, man, this is absolutely ridiculous. But by the time my Christmas break was over before I went back, I was used to it. I didn't see that it was that bad anymore. And then I'd go back to college for another three months and I'd come home in the summer like, I can't believe how rotten it's gotten.

By the end of the summer, I didn't notice a thing. You see, dear friends, listen to me, that if we give up the fight with temptation, our heart can get hardened to where we don't even feel bad when we do wrong anymore. May I say this? If you look at verse 15, it says this, Then when lust hath conceived it bringeth forth sin, and sin when it is finished bringeth forth death. That means this, why do I keep fighting preacher? Because sin always leads to another sin. If you allow one sin in your life and you allow that sin to take over and have place, before long it's going to produce others. Sin always leads to sin. Next reason is this, sin always leads to death of some kind.

Sin when it is finished, that verse says, bringeth forth death. Why should I keep trying? Why should I fight preacher when it's had victory over me so many times?

I'll tell you why. Because if you don't fight it and you don't get victory over it, it will kill something. It'll kill a relationship, it'll kill your relationship with God, it could kill a marriage, it could kill a job, it could kill all kinds of things, it could even kill you. Why should I keep fighting preacher? Are you allowing sin to destroy what is most important to you?

Are your weaknesses slowly killing relationships with people you love? Can I tell you this, that one of the biggest non-mentioned addictions is our temper. Did y'all know that? You're like, wait a minute preacher, I can deal with you preaching on some things. Now we're meddling. Can I tell you something, our self-control, our temperance, what produces our outward, our outburst of temper, that is an addiction. And if we don't get victory over it, it can kill everything in our life. I want you to notice number one this morning, the root of sin. Look at verse 13, 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. Do you know that every week all across America people walk aisles and they ask God to forgive them for things that they have asked God to forgive them for 10,000 times? And we want to say, well I tell you what, then you didn't really change. Oh listen to me dear friend, this has happened to me. I'm going to tell you there have been times I've asked God to forgive me and I've felt absolutely evil and rotten about it and I could not have been more sincere.

And within a week I would do the exact same thing. Am I the only unspiritual person here? Are we all together on this? It doesn't mean you're not sincere and it doesn't mean you really don't desire to change. It just means that sometimes we don't take the steps that are required to actually change. We feel guilty and we don't like the feeling of guilt but we don't want to make the change. And I'm here to tell you, you cannot defeat temptation on your own. You have to have God's help.

And if you're going to do that you've got to understand where it all starts. A lot of times you and I deal with sin like a teenager would deal with weeds. You ever send a teenager out to weed a garden? You ever had one do good the first time?

Nope. Because you know they can just pick up things and just as long as they don't see it. But a lot of times they don't move that dirt around and pull that root out. And before long the next day or two, man the little green starts popping up everywhere, these weeds.

You know why? Because it wasn't dealt with at the root. And you know what we do sometimes when we come to an altar and we say, God forgive me, we have taken off that top part so we don't see it today.

But that root continues to grow. The root of sin. You say, well preacher what does that mean to me? Well I want you to look at Genesis chapter 3.

A little different today that I normally just have you turn one time but I want you to see because of this giant there's a couple things you need to see. Genesis chapter 3 we find where temptation started. The root of temptation is this when we are drawn away of our own lust and enticed. So where did it start?

Where did it happen first? Look at Genesis chapter 3. Look at verse 1. Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the tree of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, and neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die. For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. Look at verse 6. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat.

Listen to me. Satan's temptation of Eve was really to establish for themselves an identity apart from God. Satan tempted her to basically tell her, You don't need God.

That's where the root comes from. You see, temptation establishes to pull us away from God. It gives us an identity away from Him, and that tree offered that to her, because Satan said, Hey, if you eat of this tree, you're going to be wise just like Him. You're going to be just like God. And He doesn't want you to eat that, because He doesn't want that.

This will take care of everything. And she believed them. You know why? Because if I eat this, I don't need God anymore. If I eat this, I'm equal with God. If I eat this, I can make my own decisions. I can do my own thing.

You know what? That is exactly what temptation does in our life. It makes us desire an identity apart from God. It makes us get to the point in our life that we say, You know what? I can make my own decisions. I can do my own thing. May I say this?

Satan was saying to her, God has lied to you. You can't trust Him. Start looking out for yourself. And establish an identity apart from God. Look at me, dear friend. Let me tell you the way society works. And this is a bit technical, but I want you to hear me out. I talked to my Sunday school class about this.

Let me see if I can describe to you. Oftentimes, what decides what we are tempted with is our set of values, our self-worth, what we think it is that makes us successful. Let me illustrate, like I did in Sunday school. We talked about temptation. If there's a gentleman, and he has a wife and kids, and for some reason, the way he was raised, the things he's been taught, or the people he's been around, listen to me now. If this man thinks that I am only successful, if I provide a certain type of house, or a certain type of car, or a certain type of lifestyle for my wife, for my kids, if I'm able to get them this and get them that and get all these things, look at me now. If that man has established that as success, like I have to have those things, that's what will make me worthy. That's what will make me successful.

Then look at me. That man has now set himself up to be tempted. Because if our self-worth comes from anything else but God himself, then we've set ourself up to be tempted. Let me illustrate.

Here's why. Because if that's what he deems as successful, and let's just say that he's having financial problems, he's trying to get all these things that he can't afford, and it puts him in debt, now he's got financial pressure coming on him, now the wife wants other things, and she wants this, and the kids want this, and this man thinks I'm not a good husband or I'm not a good dad unless I can get all these things for my wife and for my kids, that has automatically put him in a position that if he has an opportunity to be dishonest with money and gain that somehow, now he's willing to be tempted. Now in order to make myself worthy and successful, now because that was so important to him, now he is tempted with that.

Look at me. But if here's a man over here who has a wife and kids, he's serving God, and his priority is I want to be right with God. I want to serve God with my life. My priority is to try to live a holy life like God. His self-worth is not wrapped up in what kind of house or car or things he has. His self-worth is whether I'm acting in a way that makes God happy. His satisfiement is this.

Am I doing what God wants? And when that is the priority, he's not going to be tempted as bad with money over here. You know why? Because his self-worth isn't wrapped up in what money can get.

His self-worth is wrapped up in what God sees. Here's what's happened in our society. So many of us are tempted with so many things. You know why? Because we think these things are what's going to make us worthy.

We think these things are what's going to make us successful. Oftentimes, a teenage young lady can grow up in a home without a dad, without a male figure in their life. She's never gotten any kind of male affection. And a lot of times, a young lady can grow up and almost she can feel that, you know what, I've never had, I've never been fulfilled, and she thinks male affection will fulfill that. Look at me. That teenage girl, it will be very easily tempted to have premarital relations with somebody. You know why?

Because she thinks that male affection is what she needs. Look at me, folks. You and I have got to realize where the root of sin is. What is the root of sin? Well, we're gonna deal with that hopefully next week with the three ways we are tempted. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.

And we're gonna cover that next week. But look at me, I want you to notice something. You are tempted based on where your self-worth lies. If your priority in your life is to make God happy, you're gonna be tempted differently than an individual that thinks your self-worth is wrapped up in things or in people. Some men feel their self-worth is whether or not they're wanted or adored. You take a man and his whole self-worth is he wants wanted and he doesn't feel like he gets attention and he wants satisfied with that, and maybe at home him and his wife aren't getting along and they don't have that great of a relationship. Listen to me, that man has set himself up to be tempted with a secretary at work.

You see, it all depends on what our value system is, what is important to us, and that automatically makes us weak at certain temptations. That's where the root of sin comes. Look at me, Adam and Eve are in a garden.

They had perfection there. And so what did Satan do? He picked out the one thing they didn't have.

Hey, you know what, instead of worshiping God, you could be like God. And they failed a temptation. You see, Eve was tempted by what Satan tempted her with. Adam was tempted because now he didn't want to be without the woman. Now Adam, who had lived by himself, who had communed with God and did not have a help meet, and God created a help meet in Eve. Eve was tempted when Satan said, hey, you could be like God. Adam was tempted when he was told you're going to be separated from your wife forever.

And Adam ate that fruit. They were both tempted with different things because different things were important to each of them. Listen to me, dear friends, you've got to look at what's important to me. What is it that I measure success with? What is it that I measure happiness with?

If you think you have to have things or people for happiness, you're setting yourself up. The root of sin. I want you to notice secondly in this passage of the results of sin.

You would at verse 7. The Bible says in the eyes of them both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons. As soon as Adam and Eve sinned, what was the first result? Shame. They had never experienced shame before.

You know what troubles me about our society on a whole? Nobody has any shame anymore. Nobody is ashamed. Guy and girl can do wrong and have the results of that. They're not even ashamed about it.

They think they're almost happy. Like this is the way life is. That's not the way life was meant to be. That is totally against what the Bible said to do. And oftentimes young people know that but there's no shame for doing wrong. There's no shame. We can go, we say we're Christians and we say we're a member of a church and we say we love the Lord but here we go off in lifestyles doing things that are totally against what the Bible says and we're not ashamed. Sin brings shame.

All of a sudden now, man they were the first woman and man created. They had no reason to be ashamed but when sin came into their life now they were ashamed. And that's always the first step.

You know what, listen to me. The first feeling they had apart from God, remember Satan tempted them to pull them apart from God and the first thing they experienced when departing from God was shame. And that's the first thing you and I will experience too. We start taking our life and we go in a direction opposite of God, shame will come one way or the other. The second thing I notice is this, look at verse eight.

And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day as God always had and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. Here they had spent time fellowshipping with God every day and then they go and they sin. Now they have shame and guess what? They won't even come out and talk to God now.

Why? Because now they were experiencing fear. They'd never experienced fear before.

They'd never had to be afraid of anything. But they ran and hid for fear. And guess what? That's what liberation from God will do to you. It'll bring fear.

Can I tell you something? We really don't have anything to fear when we're living along the principles God has laid out for us. When you're close to God, you don't have to fear circumstances.

Guess what? When you've been saved, you don't even have to fear death. It's heaven. There's nothing to fear.

Look at me. But you depart from God and now you're on your own. You've got everything to fear. Because God's protection and God's blessing has been ripped away by temptation. Shame, fear. Notice verse 12. And the man said, the woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I did eat. And the Lord God said unto the woman, what is it that thou hast done? And the woman said, the serpent beguiled me and I did eat.

Look at me. God comes down. What does Adam do? He blames the woman. What did the woman do? She blamed Satan. Third thing you experience with sin is blame. Start blaming others. One of the biggest things when you counsel with people is to somehow try to make them take account and responsibility for their actions. Because they want to blame this that happened to them and they want to blame this person that did such, such and because they did that, that's why I am the way I am now. You know, our society plays right into it, doesn't it? Somebody can go out and shoot up 30 people and they can tell some judge that, you know, I was abused as a child. Oh, okay, we'll feel sorry for you.

Nobody wants to take responsibility for their actions. And Adam's first response is he hung that woman out to dry. She gave it to me. It's her fault.

How many times have I talked to somebody? Hey, we've been missing you at church. Well, my wife, I'm trying to get her to come, preacher. Well, can't you come without her? Can't you be a good example to her? Talk to a woman. Hey, we've been missing you at church.

Why don't you? Well, you know my husband. Boy, I tell you, I would love to be faithful at church and involved. We had a family here years ago.

Most of you would not even know it. Had a family here years ago and a woman was praying for her husband that he'd get into church. And she just prayed. Oh, you know, just prayed, prayed, prayed. He'd get in church and this man didn't want to.

And guess what? That guy got in church, God saved, led him to the Lord up here in my house. And he got in church and got really involved. In fact, he got more involved and faithful than she was and she got mad. Because now she was always the goody-goody than she was praying for him. And when he came in and God saved him, really got sold out for God, now it made her feel guilty.

And they're not even together now. Been one problem after another. You know why? Because we want to blame everybody else. That's what sin does. Sin says, hey, I'm apart from God.

I don't have to give account to him. I'll blame everybody else. That's what separation from God brings. Why, preacher, should I fight temptation? That's why.

Because look at the results of what will happen. Thank you for listening today. We hope you received a blessing from our broadcast. The Kerwin Baptist Church is located at 4520 Old Hollow Road in Kernersville, North Carolina. You may also contact us by phone at 336-993-5192 or via the web at kerwinbaptistchurch.com. Enjoy our services live and all our media on our website and church app. Thank you for listening to the Kerwin broadcast today. God bless you. We'll be right back. ... ... ... ... ... ...