The Temptation of Jesus, Part 2

Driving home: I hate his person, his laws, his people. Therefore, I've come, Christian, to withstand you.

John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress is quoted, where Apollyon expresses hatred for Christian's Prince, laws, and people, illustrating how believers become targets of satanic attack upon conversion.

Peter said, your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion walks about seeking whom he may devour. And this is nothing other than an extension of that ancient conflict prophesied in Eden, that there would be enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. John Bunyan, as he captures so many biblical principles so vividly in his pilgrim's progress, progress, I'm sorry, that was for our English friends. We find Christian talking to Apollyon.

10:40 - 11:19 Read in full sermon

Driving home: It is no necessary indication of God's displeasure to be brought into an extended season of the most intense temptation.

God sometimes allows intense temptation or falls as chastisement, like letting a child taste a forbidden cookie until it becomes bitter, to teach them the folly of sin.

Now follow closely. There are times when because we have failed to watch and failed to pray and have dabbled with what we described and judged to be little sins, that God, as it were, gives us up to an intense period of temptation, gives us up to an intense period of temptation, gives us up to an intense period of temptation, and sometimes even to grievous falls, as a stroke of chastisement for our folly. It's as though God says, All right, you want that forbidden cookie? Go ahead and taste it until it becomes bitter in our mouth, and we want to vomit it out.

34:38 - 35:19 Read in full sermon

The point: In seasons of intense temptation, when sensible delights are gone, cling to the naked word of God, just as Christ clung to His identity as God's Son.

The devil's temptations are compared to a log-like battering ram trying to break down the door of the soul, emphasizing the sustained and intense nature of spiritual warfare.

It was not something that had snapped in our psyche. And God, in his inscrutable wisdom, allowed us to enter a season of intense and sustained temptation, to change the imagery. It's one thing to feel the log-like battering ram of the devil trying to break down the door of our soul, to feel it thump three or four times, and to feel the hinges shake. It's another thing to feel it thump all day long, for a day, for two days, for three, for four, for a week, for two, or longer, until we would almost despair and wonder in the language of the psalmist, has God forgotten to show mercy? And what do w...

40:07 - 41:09 Read in full sermon

The point: Resist the devil, and he will flee from you, just as he fled from Christ.

Temptation is likened to a monkey on one's shoulder, and the devil's lie is that feeding it (yielding to sin) will make it leave, when in reality it only increases the pressure.

is meat and drink to our souls. For we know without holiness, no man will see the Lord, and without resistance, no man will see the Lord. And we know without holiness, no man will see the Lord. And we know without resisting temptation, there's no holiness. This is a matter of life and death to us. And if it isn't to you, it's because you're blind and dead and lost and ignorant of the very elements of true and saving religion. Child of God, listen. Here is the great lie of the devil. When we've entered into a period of unusually intense and sustained temptation, it's as though that enticement t...

46:13 - 46:48 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not believe the devil's lie that yielding to temptation will relieve the pressure; submission to sin only increases it.

The devil is described as a roaring lion whose teeth were pulled at Calvary, but believers often fall before the bluff of his roar, failing to resist.

But his teeth were pulled at Calvary. But often we fall before the bluff of his roar. He's the monkey on our back saying, throw me a banana. And we say, finally, let's kick the monkey off the back. And you throw him a banana. Instead of going away, you know what he does? He holds on with two hands and says, if you gave me one, why not two? And rather than submission to temptation by sin, relieving the pressure to sin, it increases it until, alas, even Christians can forge chains with which they go limping the rest of their days. Don't believe the devil's lie. Go to the wilderness. Behold your ...

47:27 - 48:21 Read in full sermon