Latest / The Bible Explained with Jenn Kokal / James 1:12-18 - The Difference Between Testing and Tempting

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James 1:12-18 - The Difference Between Testing and Tempting · The Bible Explained with Jenn Kokal

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Speaker 1: Life Audio. Hey, they're faithful listeners. Welcome to the Bible
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Speaker 1: Explained podcast. For those of you who don't know, my
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Speaker 1: name is Jen and I am the host of this podcast,
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Speaker 1: and I hope you all have been having a fantastic week.
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Speaker 1: My life is pretty chaotic right now because I have
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Speaker 1: three dogs in the house. So I have my two
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Speaker 1: Jack Russells and I'm also watching one of my family
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Speaker 1: members dogs because they're out of town. And he's a
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Speaker 1: big old Bloodhound and I am just not used to
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Speaker 1: the size of this dog. He can like look at
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Speaker 1: my kitchen table just like sitting down. And meanwhile, my
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Speaker 1: little Jack Russell bandit he can sleep under my desk.
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Speaker 1: This dog is gigantic. I am not used to him
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Speaker 1: at all. And I have him for the next couple days.
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Speaker 1: So yeah, pretty fun times. Two Jack Russells and a bloodhound.
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Speaker 1: But I'd love to hear about all of your guys's
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Speaker 1: pet Yes, you can contact me and tell me what
1:02
Speaker 1: kind of dog or cat do you have, and tell
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Speaker 1: me if you are a dog person or a cat person.
1:07
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear about all of you guys. You
1:09
Speaker 1: can contact me via the email address listed in the
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Speaker 1: description of this episode. Now let's go ahead and dive
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Speaker 1: into James chapter one, but not before I moved to
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Speaker 1: this message from a sponsor for all of you guys,
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Speaker 1: and after that we will dive into James one twelve
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Speaker 1: through eighteen. So just an fyi for you, if you
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Speaker 1: I do appreciate all of my members. You are generous
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Speaker 1: givers and I thank God for you every single time
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Speaker 1: I see your generous gift come in and I'm not
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Speaker 1: lying when I say that I really do. Let's read
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Speaker 1: James one twelve through eighteen. Today, as usual, I'll be
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Speaker 1: reading from the web. Blessed is the person who endures temptation,
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Speaker 1: for when he has been approved, he will receive the
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Speaker 1: crown of life, which the Lord promised to those who
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Speaker 1: love him. Let no man say when he is tempted,
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Speaker 1: I am tempted by God. For God can't be tempted
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Speaker 1: by evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each
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Speaker 1: one is tempted when he is drawn away by his
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Speaker 1: own lust and enticed. Then the lust, when it has conceived,
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Speaker 1: bears sin. The sin, when it is full grown, produces death.
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Speaker 1: Don't be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and
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Speaker 1: every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the
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Speaker 1: Father of Lights, with whom can be no variation nor
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Speaker 1: turning shadow of his own will. He gave birth to
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Speaker 1: us by the word of truth, that we should be
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Speaker 1: a kind of first fruits of his creatures. Today's passage
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Speaker 1: focuses on the difference between testing and temptation. It says
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Speaker 1: in verse twelve, blessed is a person who endues temptation,
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Speaker 1: for when he has been approved, he will receive the
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Speaker 1: crown of life, which the Lord promised to those who
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Speaker 1: love him. So when you are tempted to do something,
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Speaker 1: that generally means that you are attempted to do something wrong.
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Speaker 1: But when you are tested, that's a completely different thing.
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Speaker 1: Testing means you are tested to do something right. So
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Speaker 1: blessed is the person who endues temptation, so basically doesn't
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Speaker 1: give in to the temptation that Satan brings before the person,
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Speaker 1: because only Satan can bring temptation in front of someone.
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Speaker 1: That's what it says in verse thirteen. Let no man
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Speaker 1: say when he is tempted, I am tempted by God.
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Speaker 1: For God it can't be tempted by evil, and He
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Speaker 1: himself tempts no one. So God does not do any
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Speaker 1: of the tempting. Anytime you see somebody being tempted in scripture,
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Speaker 1: it's always by Satan. The best example, obviously, is in
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Speaker 1: the Garden of Eden, where Satan came to Eve and
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Speaker 1: was like, hey, you should eat of this delicious looking tree.
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Speaker 1: And Eve is like, no, God told us we're not
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Speaker 1: supposed to touch or eat that tree or we will
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Speaker 1: surely die. And Satan was like, no, you will not.
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Speaker 1: You're not gonna surely die. In fact, you're going to
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Speaker 1: be more like God if you eat this tree. God
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Speaker 1: was trying to hide something from you. This tree produces
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Speaker 1: knowledge in you to make you more like God. And
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Speaker 1: so Eve was tempted by Satan and took the fruit
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Speaker 1: of the tree and ate it, and then gave it
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Speaker 1: to her husband who was standing right next to her,
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Speaker 1: and then he ate it. So they were tempted by
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Speaker 1: Satan to do something wrong, and they gave into that temptation. Now,
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Speaker 1: being tempted in and of itself is not a sin.
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Speaker 1: In fact, every single person on the planet is going
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Speaker 1: to be tempted. I mean, look at Jesus. He was
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Speaker 1: tempted by Satan early on in his ministry. He went
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Speaker 1: into the desert for forty days, and Satan came to him,
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Speaker 1: giving him various temptations. I believe that's all talked about
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Speaker 1: in Matthew chapter seven, I think, or four. Let me see. Okay,
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Speaker 1: here's Matthew four. Jesus is tempted in the wilderness. It says,
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Speaker 1: then Jesus was led by the spirit into the wilderness
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Speaker 1: to be tempted by the devil. So, yes, God does
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Speaker 1: not do the tempting, the devil does the tempting. Again,
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Speaker 1: tempting is anything that gives you an opportunity to destroy
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Speaker 1: your relationship with God. If Jesus had given in to
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Speaker 1: any of the temptations that Satan was bringing forward to him,
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Speaker 1: that would have obviously destroyed his relationship with his Father. Now,
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Speaker 1: of course, Jesus is God himself, so he wasn't going
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Speaker 1: to give into those temptations because he can't be tempted
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Speaker 1: by evil. That's what it says right here in verse thirteen.
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Speaker 1: God can't be tempted by evil, and he himself tempts
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Speaker 1: no one. So God isn't tempted by ev He can't
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Speaker 1: be because it has no appeal to him, because he's
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Speaker 1: holy and he's righteous, and he understands what evil really
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Speaker 1: is and how damaging and destructive it really is. So
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Speaker 1: he is not going to partake in evil. And because
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Speaker 1: he doesn't partake in evil, he is not ever going
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Speaker 1: to tempt somebody else to partake in evil. Only Satan
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Speaker 1: does that. Satan is the tempter. Satan wants to destroy
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Speaker 1: our relationships with God. He wants to destroy your relationship
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Speaker 1: with God. He wants to destroy my relationship with God.
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Speaker 1: So you can't say when you are being tempted that
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Speaker 1: you are being tempted by God, because he doesn't do
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Speaker 1: the tempting. However, he does allow Satan to tempt us
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Speaker 1: because Satan has a domain of this world. Actually, if
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Speaker 1: we go back to Matthew chapter seven, that's exactly what
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Speaker 1: Satan says verse eight. Again, the devil took Jesus to
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Speaker 1: a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms
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Speaker 1: of the world and their splendor. All this I will
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Speaker 1: give you, he said, if you will bow down and
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Speaker 1: worship me. And Jesus said to him, away from me, Satan,
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Speaker 1: for it is written, worship the Lord, your God, and
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Speaker 1: serve him. Only then the devil left him, and angels
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Speaker 1: came and attended to him. And that passage was taken
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Speaker 1: from the NIV version, by the way. But yeah, I
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Speaker 1: mean Satan admitted to Jesus. He says, I have dominion
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Speaker 1: of this earth. I'm going to show you all the kingdoms,
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Speaker 1: and you know what, if you bow down, Jesus and
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Speaker 1: worship me, I will give you every single one of
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Speaker 1: these kingdoms because I have dominion over them. And Jesus
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Speaker 1: was like, get out of here, leave me alone, And
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Speaker 1: Satan did exactly that. So Satan does have domain of
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Speaker 1: this earth. So he has been given his time to rule,
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Speaker 1: I suppose, until Jesus comes back and completely destroys him
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Speaker 1: and throws him into the lake of fire for all
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Speaker 1: of eternity. So, because Satan is the ruler of the
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Speaker 1: earth right now, God is going to allow him to
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Speaker 1: tempt us. But at a certain point God steps in
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Speaker 1: and says enough is enough. That's what First Corinthians ten
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Speaker 1: thirteen says, no temptation has taken you except that which
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Speaker 1: is common to man. God is faithful who will not
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Speaker 1: allow you to be tempted above what you are able,
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Speaker 1: but will with the temptation also make the way of
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Speaker 1: escape that you may be able to endure it. So
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Speaker 1: God allows Satan to tempt us, but eventually He's going
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Speaker 1: to take that power away from Satan and not allow
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Speaker 1: Satan to continue to tempt you if it's just too much,
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Speaker 1: if you cannot handle it. But every single time that
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Speaker 1: Satan tempts you, it says right here that God makes
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Speaker 1: a way of escape for you, so that you don't
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Speaker 1: have to give into that temptation. There is always a
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Speaker 1: way of escape. God puts that in front of you,
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Speaker 1: so thankfully. Temptation is not something that we have to
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Speaker 1: give into. It's something that we choose to give into.
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Speaker 1: We can say no. And let me tell you something,
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Speaker 1: the more you say no, the easier it gets to
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Speaker 1: say no. I can tell you that with one hundred
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Speaker 1: percent confidence, because that's what happened in my own life.
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Speaker 1: It says in scripture that Satan goes around like a
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Speaker 1: roaring lion seeking somebody to devour. But if you just
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Speaker 1: say no to him, he's going to flee from you.
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Speaker 1: He might be persistent, I mean, and even in the
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Speaker 1: case of Jesus, if you go back to Matthew chapter four,
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Speaker 1: you see that Satan tempted Jesus multiple times and Jesus
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Speaker 1: kept saying no to Satan over and over and over.
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Speaker 1: Satan was persistent. But finally Satan knew he was not
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Speaker 1: going to get the better of Jesus and he ended
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Speaker 1: up leaving. Now, of course, that wasn't the last that
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Speaker 1: Jesus was going to see of him. It says that
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Speaker 1: he was going to come back for a more appropriate time,
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Speaker 1: like a better time to tempt Jesus. But still Satan
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Speaker 1: leaves when we tell him no, and those temptations go away.
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Speaker 1: There was one time I hate to air all of
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Speaker 1: my dirty laundry on this podcast, but here we go.
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Speaker 1: My husband was out of town. This was several years ago,
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Speaker 1: and sometimes when I'm doing laundry, I like to watch TV.
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Speaker 1: So I put on this show that I had never
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Speaker 1: seen before, and just out of nowhere, this very sexual
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Speaker 1: image came on the TV. And I was like, oh,
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Speaker 1: my gosh, and so I turned the show off and
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Speaker 1: I just tried to get it out of my brain.
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Speaker 1: Right And I'm not joking. Four different times that day
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Speaker 1: something related to that image just randomly showed up, and
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Speaker 1: I was, honest to God, not searching for it, like
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Speaker 1: i'd be reading a book, and it showed up and
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Speaker 1: I was like, what in the world. And then I
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Speaker 1: was watching like a documentary and they were showing like
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Speaker 1: sea Life, and it showed up there and I was like,
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Speaker 1: what the heck? How does this keep showing up for me?
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Speaker 1: And right after that documentary, I'm telling you, I prayed
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Speaker 1: to God and I was like, God, I do not
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Speaker 1: want this sexual image to tempt me, so please get
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Speaker 1: me out of it. And God answered my prayer. I
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Speaker 1: didn't think about it for the rest of the day.
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Speaker 1: That image did not come back into my mind, and
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Speaker 1: that's when I realized that Satan truly was trying to
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Speaker 1: tempt me when my husband was out of town. So
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Speaker 1: Satan tries to tempt you to break your relationship with God,
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Speaker 1: possibly to damage your relationship with other people, and also
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Speaker 1: to make you feel incredibly guilty as well. So don't
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Speaker 1: give in to temptation. It's just not worth it. That's
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Speaker 1: what it says right here in verse fourteen. Each one
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Speaker 1: is tempted when he is drawn away by his own
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Speaker 1: lust and enticed. Then the lust, when it has conceived,
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Speaker 1: bears sin. The sin, when it is full grown, produces death.
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Speaker 1: This is talking about the snowball effect. If you are
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Speaker 1: tempted and you give in, it can damage your relationship
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Speaker 1: to God, it can damage your relationship with other people.
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Speaker 1: But if you continue to give in and start making
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Speaker 1: this type of sin a habit, that is when it
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Speaker 1: produces death in your life. It might start out kind
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Speaker 1: of fun. You might think it's fun because you forget
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Speaker 1: the misery that happens after you commit the sin, But
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Speaker 1: afterward you just feel wretched. You feel like your life
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Speaker 1: has no meaning, that sin is no longer fun anymore.
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Speaker 1: It's almost like it's producing death in your life. No,
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Speaker 1: God does not tempt you to sin. He does not
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Speaker 1: want to cause death in your life. He wants to
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Speaker 1: free you from death, it says in verse sixteen, don't
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Speaker 1: be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every
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Speaker 1: perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father
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Speaker 1: of Lights, with whom can be no variation nor turning shadow.
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Speaker 1: The things that produce death and sin and misery, those
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Speaker 1: things are not from God. The good gifts in your life,
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Speaker 1: and the perfect gifts in your life, those things are
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Speaker 1: from God, the Father. So these gifts would obviously be
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Speaker 1: salvation and the fruit of the spirit, like love, joy, peace,
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Speaker 1: long suffering. Those are the perfect gifts. The good gifts
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Speaker 1: that we have might be our family, It might be
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Speaker 1: our you know, homes for some of you. It might
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Speaker 1: be your career or your children. These things are gifts
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Speaker 1: that God gives us of his own will. He gave
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Speaker 1: birth to us by the word of Truth, that we
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Speaker 1: should be a kind of first fruits of His creatures.
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Speaker 1: So this is the last argument that James gives to
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Speaker 1: prove that God does not produce temptation in our lives,
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Speaker 1: that he chose to give us birth by the word
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Speaker 1: of truth. In other words, the Gospel message the gift
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Speaker 1: of salvation. If God really wanted us to sin, then
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Speaker 1: why would he offer salvation in our lives. He wouldn't.
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Speaker 1: It doesn't make sense. God cannot contradict himself and he
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Speaker 1: can't change. He is the same yesterday, today, forever, and
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Speaker 1: Verse seventeen says that God has no variation and no
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Speaker 1: shifting shadow. So if God offered us salvation, and that
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Speaker 1: means that God obviously wants us to be freed from sin,
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Speaker 1: not to fall into it any deeper. But with all
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Speaker 1: that being said, we haven't talked about testing yet. Testing,
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Speaker 1: on the other hand, is from God, whereas temptation is not.
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Speaker 1: Because testing gives you the opportunity to repair or build
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Speaker 1: your relationship with God. So if you are being tested,
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Speaker 1: that means that God is giving you an opportunity to
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Speaker 1: grow closer to Him. The best example of this in scripture,
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Speaker 1: I think is Abraham in Genesis twenty two, when God
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Speaker 1: tells Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac to him, and
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Speaker 1: Abraham is about to do it and God stops him,
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Speaker 1: and after that God blessed Abraham immensely, and through that
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Speaker 1: God also showed more about his nature because all of
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Speaker 1: it was a picture of Jesus. In fact, in my
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Speaker 1: Good Friday episode that I did this year, I talked
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Speaker 1: all about Abraham's test and why it is so important
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Speaker 1: and how it is a picture of Jesus going to
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Speaker 1: the cross. In fact, I will link that episode in
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Speaker 1: the description of this episode, So if you haven't listened
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Speaker 1: to that one, I really highly recommend that you do.
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Speaker 1: It was a fantastic episode. It opened my eyes to
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Speaker 1: a lot of things. But the testing of Abraham's faith
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Speaker 1: there gave glory to God. It improved Abraham's relationship with God,
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Speaker 1: and it also was an opportunity for all all of
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Speaker 1: us to see more about God's nature. Now, with any test,
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Speaker 1: we can potentially fail it, we can potentially say no,
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Speaker 1: we're not going to follow the will of God, We're
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Speaker 1: not going to have faith in God. But in that case,
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Speaker 1: that is not God tempting us to do evil. That
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Speaker 1: is our own fleshly desire going against the will of God. Again,
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Speaker 1: in verse fourteen of James one, it says each one
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Speaker 1: is tempted when he is drawn away by his own
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Speaker 1: lust and enticed. So that kind of gives the idea
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Speaker 1: that Satan is not the only one that tempts us.
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Speaker 1: Apparently we can also tempt ourselves. We can tempt ourselves
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Speaker 1: when we are drawn away by our own lusts and enticed.
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Speaker 1: But that is not God tempting us or causing us
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Speaker 1: to sin. We chose to go against the will of
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Speaker 1: God and to not pass that test, and to tempt
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Speaker 1: ourselves to say that God is not faithful. So as
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Speaker 1: we grow as Christians, we should expect God to test
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Speaker 1: us on occasion, not because by the way that God
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Speaker 1: needs to see where our faith is. I did talk
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Speaker 1: about that as well on the episode that I did
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Speaker 1: about Abraham. God does not need to see where our
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Speaker 1: faith is. Again, the reason he tests us is to
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Speaker 1: give us an opportunity to grow even closer to Him.
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Speaker 1: It's an opportunity to have our faith thrive. For those
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Speaker 1: of you who know the story of Job, he was
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Speaker 1: tested and tempted, I suppose, in some of the hardest
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Speaker 1: circumstances that anybody could ever go through. But he passed
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Speaker 1: the test. He did not fall into the temptation of
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Speaker 1: cursing God, even though he went through misery, even though
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Speaker 1: his friends were no help, even though his wife was
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Speaker 1: telling him to curse God. He passed the test, and
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Speaker 1: what happened at the end of the Book of Job
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Speaker 1: for those of you who know the story, because Job
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Speaker 1: endured the temptation and the testing, he was blessed beyond
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Speaker 1: abundance because of his faith in God, and his relationship
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Speaker 1: with God was stored and not only restored, but completely
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Speaker 1: changed because God himself actually appeared to Job and told
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Speaker 1: Job all of these different things. For three long chapters.
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Speaker 1: God explains his sovereignty to Job and he's like, Job,
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Speaker 1: are you on my level? He gave Job the opportunity
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Speaker 1: to grow closer to him, and Job passed the test
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Speaker 1: and was blessed beyond measure at the end of the book.
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Speaker 1: God will not tempt us to do evil, but he
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Speaker 1: does test us to bring our relationship closer to him.
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Speaker 1: Faith listeners, I'm going to move to a quick ad break,
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Speaker 1: and after that I'm going to state one last point
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Speaker 1: before I close out the episode for today. The last
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Speaker 1: thing I want to say about today's portion is that
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Speaker 1: we can expect, as Christians, both tempting and testing. Every
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Speaker 1: single Christian is going to be tempted to do something evil.
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Speaker 1: We are going to be tempted to fall away from God.
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Speaker 1: We're going to be tempted to engage in some sort
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Speaker 1: of vice. We're going to be tempted to sin in
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Speaker 1: any kind of capacity that you can think of. In
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Speaker 1: order to be prepared for that, we have to put
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Speaker 1: on the entire armor of God. That is what Ephesians
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Speaker 1: six eleven through eighteen says. And I'm not going to
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Speaker 1: read the whole thing for you, but i will read
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Speaker 1: the first couple verses. Put on the whole armor of God,
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Speaker 1: that you may be able to stand against the wiles
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Speaker 1: of the devil. For our wrestling is not against flesh
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Speaker 1: and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against
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Speaker 1: the world's rulers and the darkness of this age, and
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Speaker 1: against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore,
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Speaker 1: put on the whole armor of God, that you may
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Speaker 1: be able to withstand in the evil day, and having
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Speaker 1: done all, to stand. And I recommend that you guys
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Speaker 1: read the rest, and I'll link the episode where I
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Speaker 1: talked about Ephesian six and the full armor of God
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Speaker 1: in the description, because we have to arm ourselves and
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Speaker 1: we have to guard against Satan so that we don't
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Speaker 1: give into the temptation. Again, God is always going to
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Speaker 1: give us a way out of temptation. We do not
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Speaker 1: have to say yes to temptation. We can say no.
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Speaker 1: We can choose to get out of it. What does
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Speaker 1: Jesus tell us to pray in the Lord's Prayer, the
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Speaker 1: most famous prayer, lead us not into temptation, but deliver
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Speaker 1: us from the evil one. God will always give us
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Speaker 1: a way out from temptation. But as Christians, we shouldn't
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Speaker 1: just be expecting temptation, but we should be expecting God
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Speaker 1: to test us on occasion. It says in Zechariah thirteen,
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Speaker 1: verse nine that God will bring the third part into
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Speaker 1: the fire and will refine them as silver is refined,
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Speaker 1: and will test them like gold is tested. Then they
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Speaker 1: will call on my name, and I will hear them,
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Speaker 1: and I will say it is my people, and they
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Speaker 1: will say, Yahweh is my God. God is going to
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Speaker 1: test his people, every single one of us. And what
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Speaker 1: is the result in the end that they will call
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Speaker 1: on God's name and say, Yahweh is my God. And
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Speaker 1: God will respond, this is my son or my daughter.
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Speaker 1: So you have to expect both testing and temptation in
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Speaker 1: your life as a Christian, and the best way to
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Speaker 1: be prepared is to ask God to help you to
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Speaker 1: get through these testing and these temptations and also to
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Speaker 1: put on the full armor of God discussed in Ephesians
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Speaker 1: chapter six. Faithful Listeners, I hope you all have a
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Speaker 1: fantastic and wonderful rest of your day. If you guys
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Speaker 1: want to tune into tomorrow's podcast, you have to become
20:28
Speaker 1: a member because Fridays are for the members, and right
20:31
Speaker 1: now we are going through the Book of the Psalms.
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Speaker 1: It's been a fantastic book. So there's an extra almost
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Speaker 1: ninety episodes I think for all of you guys to
20:40
Speaker 1: indulge in. When you become a member of the Friday podcast.
20:43
Speaker 1: Click the link in the description that says Kofi if
20:45
Speaker 1: you are interested in that, Faithful Listeners, I hope to
20:47
Speaker 1: see you guys tomorrow, but if I don't, I will
20:50
Speaker 1: see all of you on Monday for the regular scheduled
20:52
Speaker 1: episode where we'll talk about Nehemiah chapter or I think six.
20:57
Speaker 1: Happy Listening and God bless. I just want to take
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Speaker 1: a second to thank the team at Life Audio for
21:07
Speaker 1: their partnership with me on the Bible Explain podcast. In fact,
21:11
Speaker 1: if you go to lifeaudio dot com you'll find dozens
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Speaker 1: of other faith centered podcasts in their network. They've got
21:16
Speaker 1: shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more.