Now, into this arena of sin and temptation, we have a promise, one that is both very sobering and very good. So what is happening when you sin? James is clear: The external temptation comes-say, a woman at the gym who’s father did not teach her what modesty meant-and if you sin, you sin because that external temptation found a corresponding inward desire ( “But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.”), and that desire gives birth to sin and death. So back to James 1, what do we see? God himself isn’t enticing you to sin, even when he allows external testing and temptation to come to you. God permits that evil, sin, temptation, and disaster exist-though he could prevent them all-because he is working them all together for the good of his saints and his own glory. Three word answer, then I’ll explain: God’s permissive will. If temptations do come to us-and they do and if God did not tempt us-and he doesn’t and if he is yet sovereign over all things-and he is then how do those temptations come? Amos 3:6 even teaches us to say, “Does disaster come to a city, unless the LORD has done it?” The answer to the rhetorical question there is “No.” Not one thing happens in this world, save by his permission. He is sovereign over every nation and state and tribe and city and household and person and molecule and atom and quark. God is utterly sovereign, top to bottom, heaven to earth. Is that a Christian theology? No! That’s folly. I’m talking about trying to explain how it is that God doesn’t tempt us to sin by limiting his sovereignty-as if that temptation came in your life, and God had no power whatsoever to do anything about it. Now, let’s think carefully here, because there’s a way we could explain why God doesn’t tempt us to sin that would land us in a theological ditch at 55 MPH. So we can start out by saying, point-blank, that God isn’t the one who is tempting you to sin. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.” But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. “Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. I’d like to take a look at an important passage there to clarify some of the questions that naturally arise from this petition in Matthew 6:13. How do we stand in testing? Does God Tempt? How can we expect the Father to answer this prayer?Ĥ. What does the tempting of the evil one look like?ģ. If God does not tempt any to sin (James 1:13), then what does this petition mean?Ģ. We will approach this final petition of the Lord’s prayer by way of four questions:ġ. Thus ends the reading of God’s Word may he write it on our hearts by faith. Look at the Lord’s prayer with me again, starting in Matthew 6:9. But as we continue focusing together on the Lord’s Prayer, in actually the final portion of it, we find that there is a much more garden-variety demonic activity that we are to be on watch for. Demons are real and biblical and hate you. If any of it is real, it’s certainly demonic deception.Īnd the demonic, and that variety of demonic activity is real. I noticed something this year that struck me, and that is that many of these stories of alien encounters-and don’t get me wrong, I’m sure most of them are people who just want attention-but a common thread through many of the supposed “messages” that these alien beings bring are basically straight evolutionary secular humanism sprinkled with a dash of new-age mumbo-jumbo. One thing recently for me, fun fact, that comes to mind are aliens. Maybe it’s occultism, Anton LaVey maybe it’s The Exorcist. When you think of the demonic, what comes to mind? I want you to turn that question over in your mind. Preacher: Pastor Brian Sauvé Deliver Us From Evil
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