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a Healthy Marriage with Tim

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Keller wherever you listen to

1:12

podcasts. Let

1:19

me read to you two passages. One

1:23

really has a lot more to do with

1:25

the attack of

1:27

temptation. The other has to

1:29

do with the defense against

1:32

temptation. And so

1:35

what I'm going to have to ask you to do, I hate to do

1:37

this to you, but I'm going to ask you to stick a finger in

1:39

one. We're going to spend the first part in Genesis 3, verses 1 to

1:41

7, and the second of

1:44

the talk tonight on

1:46

Genesis 39, verses 6 to 12. Genesis 3, 1

1:48

to 7. Now the serpent

1:55

was more crafty than

1:57

any of the wild animals the Lord God had

1:59

created. had made. He

2:02

said to the woman, did God really

2:04

say you must not eat from any

2:06

tree in the garden? The

2:08

woman said to the serpent, we may

2:11

eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but

2:13

God did say you must not eat fruit from

2:15

the tree that is in the middle of the

2:17

garden, and you must not touch it or

2:19

you will die. You will

2:21

not surely die, the serpent said to the woman,

2:24

for God knows that when you eat of it,

2:26

your eyes will be open and you will be

2:28

like God, knowing good and evil. Then

2:32

the woman saw that the fruit of the

2:34

tree was good for food and pleasing to

2:36

the eye and also desirable for gaining wisdom,

2:38

and she took some and ate it. She

2:42

also gave some to her husband who was with her and

2:44

he ate it. And the eyes

2:46

of both of them were opened and they realized they

2:48

were naked, so they sewed fig leaves together and

2:51

made coverings for themselves. Finger,

2:56

turn to page, turn to Genesis

2:58

39 if you're returning.

3:00

39, now we

3:02

all know that Joseph was in the, he was a

3:07

servant in the house of Potiphar, and

3:10

we pick up the narrative

3:12

in chapter 6, chapter 39

3:14

verse 6. So

3:17

Potiphar left in Joseph's care everything he had,

3:19

with Joseph in charge he did not concern

3:21

himself with anything except the food he ate.

3:25

Now Joseph was well built and

3:27

handsome, and after a while his

3:29

master's wife took notice of Joseph and said, come to

3:31

bed with me. But

3:34

he refused. With

3:36

me in charge he told her my master does

3:38

not concern himself with anything in the house. Everything

3:41

he owns he has trusted to my care.

3:44

No one is greater in this house than I am.

3:46

My master has withheld nothing from me except you because

3:48

you are his wife. How then

3:50

could I do such a great thing, such

3:52

a wicked thing and sin against God? And

3:55

though he spoke to Joseph day after day,

3:58

though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he

4:00

refused to go to bed with her or even

4:02

be with her. And one day he

4:05

went into the house to attend to his duties and

4:07

none of the household servants was inside. She

4:09

caught him by his cloak and said, Come to

4:11

bed with me. But he left his cloak in

4:14

her hand and ran out of the house." Let's

4:18

end our reading of God's Word right there.

4:20

The attack, Genesis 3, the defense, Genesis

4:23

39. We're

4:26

talking about temptation under the general heading of the

4:28

fruit of the Spirit. We've been talking about the

4:30

last of the fruit of the Spirit, which

4:33

is self-control. And

4:37

when we think of temptation, almost immediately

4:39

we tend to think of

4:42

the most explicit, specific and

4:44

physical kind of sins. We think of

4:46

the temptation of eat, of

4:49

food, the temptation of drugs, we think of

4:51

the temptation of sex. But

4:53

there's really a lot of other temptations. There's

4:56

the temptations. Actually, some of us are giving

4:58

in to pride. There's temptations to despair. There's

5:01

temptations to dishonesty. And

5:05

in 1 Corinthians 6, Paul

5:07

says, All things are lawful to

5:09

me, but I will not be mastered by

5:12

anything. All things are lawful

5:15

to me, but I will not

5:17

be mastered by anything. And you

5:19

know, he's laying down an incredibly

5:21

important, important thing. Anything,

5:24

whether it's lawful or good or not,

5:27

can become addicting and it

5:29

becomes your master. And that's what

5:32

temptation is about. Temptation

5:35

is about something which may be good or

5:37

may be bad, but becomes your master and

5:39

therefore it's bad. I, he says,

5:42

all things are lawful to me, but I

5:44

will not be mastered by anything. And

5:46

a lot of us know that we're being mastered by things.

5:48

And we may get out from under them by rationalizing

5:51

them. We'll see tonight how we do that. We're

5:53

pointing out the fact that in itself it's nothing

5:55

wrong with it. And yet we know that we're

5:57

mastered by it. Now,

6:00

temptation, if you talk

6:03

about temptation, in the Bible

6:05

inevitably gets to a subject that we've got

6:07

to treat for a minute or two before

6:09

we get into temptation proper, and that

6:12

is the devil. So

6:15

Cardinal O'Connor recently said

6:17

that there were two exorcisms done in the last couple

6:20

of years in the Diocese of

6:22

New York, and I don't know if anybody

6:24

read what the responses

6:26

were, but he was absolutely taken to

6:28

the cleaners by the

6:30

papers, by everybody. People

6:33

ridiculed him. Theologians

6:37

at Notre Dame University said, nobody believes

6:39

in a personal devil anymore. How ridiculous.

6:42

And the problem is, and you have your handouts, by

6:44

the way, are you following along? At

6:46

the very top of the handout, we

6:50

can't go further into the subject of

6:52

temptation unless we deal with the verse

6:55

7, and the serpent said, has God

6:57

said? Because

7:00

the first temptation we're

7:02

told about in the Bible involves

7:04

the serpent, involves the dragon, involves

7:07

Satan. And a lot of

7:09

us have a lot of trouble even

7:11

talking about temptation because

7:14

we don't like even to think

7:16

about the subject. The

7:18

subject in many ways seems primitive. We don't

7:20

want to be laughed at like Cardinal O'Connor

7:22

was laughed at. Now look,

7:25

first of all, I think there's

7:27

a real possibility that

7:29

in New York City, there's some things happening that haven't

7:31

happened in 150 years. You know,

7:34

150 years ago, the churches here were absolutely

7:36

packed to the gills two,

7:38

three, four times. In the late

7:40

1850s, I found a book in our

7:42

library published in 1859

7:44

in my library in Philadelphia, where

7:47

I used to have an office. In

7:49

that library, that book was there, and it was sermons

7:51

from the churches of New York City. And

7:54

it had sermons from

7:56

1859 from all

7:58

these churches up and down Fifth Avenue. and

8:02

Park Avenue churches downtown. A lot of churches that

8:04

are still in existence, a lot of churches that

8:06

aren't in existence now, every one

8:08

of them was absolutely overflowing with

8:10

brand new conversions, constantly. Wall Street

8:13

was jam-packed with people who were

8:15

praying businessmen every day.

8:19

Now, for the last several

8:21

years, the last several decades, you might

8:23

say, there's been almost none of that.

8:26

And a lot of people have said, ah, the church in

8:28

New York City is dead. And

8:30

it's not true. You know, I

8:32

have a little poem I put here that I, one

8:35

of my favorite poems out of a novel, that

8:38

it has its own place in

8:40

the plot of that novel. But I

8:42

put it out here because it tells me a lot

8:44

about New York, and it tells me a lot about

8:46

the church. Jesus Christ says in

8:48

Matthew 16, the gates of hell

8:51

will not prevail against it. Look, you

8:53

see it? All that is gold does

8:55

not glitter. Not all

8:57

those who wander are lost. The

9:00

old that is strong does not wither.

9:02

Deep roots are not touched by the

9:04

frost. From

9:07

the ashes of fire shall be woken. A

9:10

light from the shadows shall spring. Renewed

9:13

will be blade that was broken. The

9:15

crownless again will be king. Now,

9:18

yeah, it has a place in that particular

9:21

novel in the plot, but it's getting at

9:23

something more important. It's getting at

9:25

the fact that you can't kill the church. You

9:28

cannot, you see. The

9:30

old that is strong does not wither. Deep roots

9:33

are not killed by the frost. And

9:36

no matter how bad things seem to get,

9:39

no matter how much the churches look like

9:41

ashes, there's deep embers. No matter

9:43

how dark it gets, there's a light. No

9:45

matter how broken our swords are, they can

9:48

be reforged, and the king can come back,

9:50

and we can get our blades out, and

9:52

we can start doing his work, and march

9:54

and fight his battles, see. The

9:59

reason that... for a given period of

10:01

time in a region, the church can look

10:03

dead even though it's not. And

10:05

it's not. But

10:07

one of the reasons for that

10:09

is because of what Paul calls

10:12

the cosmocratoroi. Ah,

10:14

you know, just, you don't know what that means, do

10:16

you, but you can tell they're bad news. Just

10:19

by the name, can't you? The

10:22

cosmocratoroi. Paul,

10:24

in Ephesians 6, talks

10:27

about the cosmocratoroi. Ephesians

10:30

6, 12, it's the powers and

10:32

principalities. When

10:36

Daniel, in Daniel chapter 10 is praying,

10:39

and he's asking God for an answer, after

10:43

several days an angel shows up. And

10:45

it's almost funny, I mean, it's absolutely true, but

10:47

it's funny. And the angel comes in sort of

10:49

sweating like this, and he says, you know, Daniel,

10:52

I would have been here nine days ago. But

10:54

the prince of Persia, and that's where Daniel was

10:57

praying, the prince of Persia kept me from coming

10:59

to you. I had to do battle

11:01

with him, and Michael the Archangel came and helped me,

11:03

and I've come through and answered your prayer. What

11:06

the heck is that? What's the

11:09

prince of Persia? And everyone

11:11

who studied that passage, pretty

11:13

much comes to agree that

11:16

Daniel was talking about there, a

11:19

regionally based demonic force. A

11:23

prince of Persia, because later on, the angel gets up and

11:25

says, I've gotta go do battle with the prince of Greece.

11:28

The idea is they're regionally based,

11:30

the Bible teaches, demonic forces, the

11:32

cosmocrataroi, cosmos means cosmic, crateroi means

11:35

a strong man or a tyrant,

11:37

cosmic tyrants. You know, what a

11:40

vivid name the Bible uses. There are cosmic

11:42

tyrants that tend to be regionally based and

11:44

do everything they can to set up a

11:46

kind of spiritual dome over a city or

11:48

over a region. And

11:50

what they try to do is simply stir up the pride

11:52

that's in us and keep us at each other's throats, getting

11:55

us mad at God, getting us mad at

11:57

each other, getting us mad at ourselves. Stirring

12:01

it up as much as possible. Daniel

12:03

punches a hole in the dome over

12:05

Persia with

12:08

his prayer. And

12:11

in it comes. And the angel says, we got through. Now

12:14

a lot of people, as soon as you hear

12:16

me talking about that, start to get kind of

12:18

uncomfortable in the pews there. You're

12:20

kidding. You sound like a relatively

12:23

intelligent person with probably at least an

12:25

eighth grade education. What are

12:27

you doing? Talking about little men

12:29

running around with, in red leotards

12:31

and pitchforks. You're kidding,

12:33

right? I'm saying no. You cannot

12:35

even begin to understand what the

12:37

Bible says about temptation until

12:40

you understand who it was that said,

12:42

has God said. Who was the serpent?

12:48

Now, I'll tell you, before we

12:50

go on, I want you to realize that I

12:52

need to challenge up front any

12:55

real, illogical and irrational bias

12:57

that you might have against the existence

13:00

of an evil supernatural realm. I

13:02

say it's irrational and I say it's biased,

13:04

absolutely. I put down here, you

13:07

have to realize that at the philosophical level,

13:11

an anti-supernatural bias is out of date.

13:14

See, about 300 years ago, a man

13:17

named David Hume came along during

13:20

the Enlightenment. And in the Enlightenment,

13:22

David Hume came along and he came up with this

13:24

basic theory. He says, we now know,

13:26

science has proven to us that miracles

13:28

cannot happen. He says, we

13:30

now know that nature is uniform and therefore,

13:33

whenever you read in the Bible an

13:36

explanation of a miracle, we always know

13:39

that there must be a natural explanation for that.

13:42

We now know that nature is uniform and

13:45

miracles cannot happen. What happens is, for 300

13:47

years, pretty much what

13:49

David Hume said, ruled the roost at

13:51

the highest levels of educated, the knowledge

13:53

class. They said, yeah, Hume was right.

13:57

For the last 20 or 30 years, that consensus has

13:59

broken up. begun to realize that

14:01

what Hume said is absolutely irrational.

14:04

Because even though science can say we've

14:06

never seen, we scientists empirically have never

14:08

seen a miracle, everybody knows that you

14:10

cannot prove that miracles haven't happened where

14:12

we haven't been looking, or that they're

14:14

not going to happen in the future.

14:16

In fact, at this point, scientific philosophers

14:19

admit that we don't know what the

14:21

heck a law of nature is. And

14:23

you see, there's a bias. When you

14:25

say miracles can't happen because nature is

14:27

uniform, what you mean is miracles can't

14:29

happen because miracles can't happen. That's begging

14:31

the question. If there's a God,

14:34

then miracles are natural. If

14:37

there's a God, angels, the existence of

14:39

angels is natural. And if there's a

14:42

positive supernatural, the existence of a negative

14:44

supernatural isn't irrational, but it's perfectly natural.

14:47

You know, let me give you an interesting example.

14:51

My old friend C.S. Lewis, who

14:53

was a Greek scholar,

14:56

always found it interesting that the

14:59

Old Testament and Herodotus had

15:01

two very different ways of understanding,

15:04

the great siege of Jerusalem

15:06

by Sennacherib, the Assyrian general.

15:08

You know, the Assyrian king

15:10

and general Sennacherib went and

15:12

surrounded Jerusalem with an overwhelming

15:14

force of the

15:16

Assyrian army. It outnumbered

15:19

the people inside Jerusalem 10 to 1.

15:22

And all we really know for sure, most

15:25

historians say, is for some strange

15:27

reason that army was defeated and

15:29

they ran home with their tail between their legs.

15:32

And nobody is sure why. Well,

15:34

the Old Testament, 2 Kings 19,

15:38

verse 35 tells us that the angels

15:40

came down and slew men right

15:43

in their camps and the next day they got

15:45

up and they ran. Herodotus,

15:49

the famous Greek historian, tells us something different.

15:51

Let me read you a quote from C.S.

15:53

Lewis. When the Old Testament says that Sennacherib's

16:00

angels, 2 Kings 19.35. And

16:03

when Herodotus says, it was stopped by a lot of

16:05

mice who came and ate up all the bow strings

16:07

of the army, which he

16:09

says in book 2 section 141, a

16:12

truly open-minded man will be on the side of the

16:14

angels. Unless you

16:16

start by begging the question

16:18

that there is no such

16:20

thing as a supernatural, and you cannot

16:22

prove that, that's a faith proposition. Then

16:26

there is nothing intrinsically unlikely

16:28

in the existence of

16:32

angels or in the action ascribed to them,

16:35

but mice just don't do

16:37

these things. Now, you

16:41

see what he's saying? How

16:43

do you know there's no supernatural? That's a guess.

16:47

Science can't prove there's no supernatural. Science is

16:49

an empirical science.

16:51

It does only, it observes those things which you

16:53

can taste, hear, see and smell. It only deals

16:55

with the natural. It can't

16:58

study the supernatural. It doesn't claim

17:01

to study the supernatural. And therefore,

17:03

how can you prove that there's no such thing

17:05

as supernatural? You can't prove that. It's a faith

17:07

proposition. And C.S. Lewis says, if

17:09

you look at the evidence, what

17:11

is most likely? If there is a God,

17:14

then it's absolutely natural that there might be

17:16

angels who could do things like that. Or

17:18

devils. If you

17:20

say there is no God and that's a faith

17:22

proposition, then you can say miracles can't happen.

17:24

But don't you see, at the bottom of your

17:27

assumption is a faith proposition. And

17:30

the philosophers of science are agreeing at this point.

17:32

It's silly to say religious

17:35

people can believe in devils, but down to

17:37

earth scientific people can't. They realize that there's

17:39

no way science can prove or disprove. That

17:41

anti-supernatural bias is kind of leaving the knowledge

17:44

classes, but it's not leaving the man and

17:46

woman on the street. There's still a feeling

17:48

like, oh my gosh, you don't really believe

17:50

in a personal devil. And I say, well,

17:52

wait a minute, here's a question. Do you

17:55

believe in God? And many times they say,

17:57

sure. Then what's, you're kidding, right? You believe

17:59

in God? God, you believe in

18:01

a good supernatural. You believe

18:03

maybe even in a heaven and an afterlife.

18:06

But you're telling me that you don't believe in

18:08

a personal devil, you don't believe in cosmocrateroi, you

18:10

don't believe in an evil supernatural realm and you're

18:13

not even sure you believe in hell? That

18:15

sounds to me like you've just picked and

18:17

chosen what you want in the Bible. It

18:20

sounds to me like a wishful film and

18:22

it sounds to me like you invented a

18:24

religion. And it just makes you kind of comfortable

18:26

and cozy. And there's not only no basis

18:28

for it, but actually

18:30

all the evidence is against it. So you just look out

18:32

there in the world and you say, gee, I can just

18:35

tell if there is a supernatural it must be full of

18:37

goodness and love. Just look out there in the

18:39

world and say, I can just tell that if there is a God, if

18:42

there is a supernatural realm, it just must be everybody's

18:44

going to heaven and everything is good and there can't

18:47

be demons, there can't be evil. Of course you don't

18:49

see that out there. And that's

18:51

the reason we put down here, that

18:53

it's absolutely imperative for you to understand

18:55

that there is a devil

18:59

and that there is a slew of

19:01

his followers and their princes

19:03

and power of the air. Now

19:06

secondly, along with that, before you

19:08

can go on any further, there's two equal

19:10

and opposite errors into which people can fall

19:13

when it comes to this whole subject of

19:15

devils and the demonic. And

19:17

there is these two errors and you

19:19

can remember them like this. There's superstition

19:21

and there's substition. See

19:23

superstition literally means over belief,

19:25

super overstition, a belief. Substition

19:28

means under belief and

19:31

almost all of us before

19:33

we're Christians and after we're Christians fall

19:36

into either superstition or substition. By

19:39

superstition we mean an unhealthy

19:43

over interest in the subject and

19:45

attributing too much power to them. Substition

19:50

is either a disbelief in them at all or

19:54

generally a kind of writing them out of your

19:56

day to day existence saying well I never have

19:58

to take into consideration the if there's anything

20:00

like that there. Maybe in

20:02

darkest Africa or in the jungles of

20:05

Borneo, there might be

20:07

two or three people who deal with that sort of

20:09

thing, but I don't have to worry about it at

20:11

all. Superstition and substition. Reminds me, the

20:13

devil reminds me of a blow snake. You know how

20:15

a blow snake deals with his enemies? When

20:17

you first come up on a blow snake, it puffs itself

20:19

up, gets real big

20:21

and real mean and real ugly looking and tries

20:24

to scare you off, you see. And if you

20:26

don't get scared off, he

20:29

sucks himself in, flips over, lays

20:31

down and plays dead. See,

20:34

in other words, there's only two ways that

20:36

he can deal with you. He's gotta get

20:38

you into a superstitious approach to blow snakes

20:40

or a substitious approach to blow snakes. Devil's

20:43

the same way. Now, in the Christian

20:45

life, this works out like this. Christians

20:48

believe in the devil in general if you've got

20:50

a belief in the authority of the scripture. You

20:52

realize how irrational it is, in

20:54

fact, how self-serving it is, to

20:56

decide you like to believe in all the nice

20:58

things in the Bible and none of the

21:00

sinister things, you see. Well,

21:03

you realize that, so you believe in the

21:05

devil, but there's a tendency, even inside the

21:07

Christian church, on the one hand, there's Christians

21:09

that are superstitious about the devil. Now, what

21:12

I mean by superstitious is I

21:14

mean they tend to attribute too much

21:16

power to him. They

21:18

tend to say, when problems happen,

21:20

the devil made me do it, the

21:22

devil did that to me, I need some

21:25

kind of major cleansing, I've

21:27

gotta have people come and command the devils to come out

21:29

of me. I'll show you in a minute why I think

21:31

that's superstitious. Substition,

21:35

many Christians look at your problems and you

21:37

look at whatever

21:39

your problems are, simply the way that

21:41

a secular therapist would look at them.

21:43

Simply, you look at your problems as

21:46

functions only of your hormones or

21:48

functions of your physiology or

21:50

functions of your background or

21:52

your family life, your conditioning, and

21:54

in substition, you always overlook the

21:56

fact that your problems are really

21:58

battlegrounds of spiritual work. You

24:00

believe that addictions, and you very often believe

24:02

that despair and depression and all kinds of

24:04

these terrible, awful things that can really rack

24:07

and ruin your life, must be

24:09

from the outside. My parents

24:11

did it to me, or the devil did it to

24:13

me, or my chemicals are doing it to me. But

24:15

it couldn't just be because I

24:17

have taken my own sinful, selfish

24:20

pride, and I have played

24:22

right into its hand. And

24:24

see, the flesh is that devious, and

24:26

the flesh is that strong.

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25:24

here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of

25:26

today's teaching. And

25:30

as we're going to see in a minute, superstition

25:34

tends to say, well, the thing to do with

25:36

Satan is to yell at him. Get out! You

25:39

think that's going to do something, to yell

25:41

at him? Are you kidding? He's been around

25:43

for millions of years. He knows what's going

25:46

on. He's not a person who is simply

25:48

going to be hocus-pocused out.

25:51

And we're going to see in a minute that

25:53

that's not the way necessarily you deal with Satan

25:55

at all. Superstition

25:57

and substition. Everybody

26:00

in this room is falling into one or the other.

26:03

I myself have bounced back like most of you, I think. If

26:05

you've been a Christian more than, say,

26:07

five years, you have bounced around

26:09

on this, haven't you? You know, you've gotten in with

26:11

people that were kind of superstitious about Satan and were

26:13

trying to figure that most of your problems were due

26:15

to some kind of demonic activity,

26:17

and then you've bounced away from that maybe, or

26:19

maybe the other way around. Maybe you were always

26:21

a little bit on the skeptical side and then

26:23

you just discovered spiritual warfare and now you're bouncing back.

26:25

It's hard to get a grip on this. I'm

26:29

gonna try to help you as we continue tonight. The

26:32

serpent said, has God said. Eve

26:36

had something in her, the serpent was playing,

26:40

but the serpent poses it. He's involved, right?

26:42

Now let's take a look at the way

26:44

he comes upon us. Let's look at the

26:47

way of attack, and then let's look at

26:49

the way of defense. Number one, attack.

26:53

Satan comes up and says, you will

26:55

be as God's. You

26:58

will be as God, depends on how

27:00

you translate it. In the King James

27:03

here, it says, for God knows

27:05

that when you eat of this fruit, your eyes

27:07

will be opened and you will be like

27:09

God. That's a pretty good translation. Temptation

27:14

comes from lies. I

27:17

don't know what else I can, I'm gonna repeat,

27:19

for the next 15 minutes, I'm gonna repeat myself again

27:21

and again and again. Maybe, if

27:23

any of you really think you understand it, you can go now

27:25

because I'm just gonna keep saying this again and again and again.

27:29

Or if you wanna wait around for a bit, I'd appreciate

27:31

it. I'm gonna just keep repeating the same point. Satan

27:34

tempts through lies. The

27:36

Bible continually says he was a liar from the

27:39

beginning. Satan is a liar. Second

27:41

Timothy 2.25 says, God may grant that

27:45

they might repent and know the truth and be

27:47

delivered from the snare of the devil. You're

27:49

not in a snare if you've got the truth. The

27:51

truth is what sets you free. Distortion

27:54

is what gets you in bondage. Self-control

27:56

is a matter of getting in touch

27:58

with reality, with God's truth. Truth. Temptation

28:01

and addiction has always got to

28:03

do with distortion that's operating down

28:05

deep. For example, let me just

28:07

give you some more scripture. When

28:09

in Acts chapter 5 Peter is talking

28:12

to Ananias, he says,

28:14

Ananias, Satan filled your heart to lie

28:16

to the Holy Spirit. The

28:19

lie comes up. In

28:21

the wilderness, Jesus is

28:23

tempted. What

28:27

happens whenever Jesus is being tempted?

28:29

Look what carefully happens. In

28:31

every situation, Satan is trying to

28:34

inject very subtly

28:36

a distorted view of God. He

28:39

comes up and he insinuates, boy, you're

28:41

pretty hungry. Why would God let you be in

28:44

this condition? Why don't you turn these stones into

28:46

bread? In other words, why don't you go on

28:48

your own power, Jesus, instead of relying on your

28:50

father? That's a great

28:53

temptation for Jesus because his job was to come

28:55

here and to be our representative, to live a

28:57

perfect life as a human being. And a human

29:00

being is supposed to depend on God for everything

29:02

so he doesn't do it. What does he do?

29:04

Does he turn around and say, hocus pocus?

29:07

Does he do a ritual? Does he walk around? What

29:10

does he do? He gets out

29:12

the word of God and

29:14

he says, Satan, man does not live by bread alone,

29:17

but on every word that comes out of the mouth of

29:19

God. What Jesus does is

29:21

he always deals with the temptation in terms

29:23

of the truth. If

29:26

you look at your own life, you will

29:28

see that what gets you where you've gone, what

29:31

binds you are lies. There'll

29:35

be times in which your head clears and you realize, I

29:37

don't have to feel sorry for myself. I

29:40

don't have to feel like I've had a terrible

29:42

lot in life because God is my savior and

29:44

I'm going to rule and reign with him as

29:46

kings and priests forever. And right

29:48

now, he's given me his Holy Spirit and

29:52

he's given me his love. And why do

29:54

I feel so sorry for myself? If God gave me

29:56

what I deserve, I'd

29:58

be gone. You can't

30:00

ask for justice and yet, see

30:03

that's when your head's clear, and

30:05

you're not depressed, and you're

30:07

not ready to bite your neighbor's head off, or your husband's

30:09

head off, or your wife's head off, or your friend's head

30:11

off. But it's later in the day when

30:14

you've forgotten that truth and it's not coming

30:16

through, and you're starting to think, you

30:18

know what, I've tried my

30:20

best, and where has it gotten

30:22

me? And what good is it

30:25

being a Christian? What

30:28

good is all this religion? What are those things? Those

30:30

are lies, that's distortion. You're out of

30:32

touch with reality. It's a form of

30:35

spiritual insanity. And

30:37

as it creeps in, all

30:40

the temptations happen. The temptation to be bitter, the

30:42

temptation to be depressed, the temptation to bite somebody's

30:44

head off. It comes from lies, and that's why

30:46

we put down here on the, whatever this thing

30:49

is, the handout. You

30:52

must discover lies. Neither the flesh

30:54

nor demonic powers can make a

30:56

Christian sin. They

30:59

are not our king. By

31:01

the way, one of the greatest missionaries

31:03

in history was a man named John Nevius. Just

31:06

an aside, John Nevius

31:09

began church planting in

31:12

a country called Korea, oh, back

31:14

around 1903, and he developed a

31:16

method of church planting that he thought

31:18

was going to really help things. Now,

31:20

the Korean church is maybe

31:22

the most vital church in the world, and

31:25

the Korean church, everybody's amazed at how

31:27

fast the population in Korea

31:30

is becoming Christian, it's astonishing. A lot

31:32

of it had to do with this

31:34

unbelievable missionary method of John Nevius. He

31:36

was responsible for literally hundreds and thousands

31:38

of churches. This man

31:40

constantly, and I believe him, he

31:44

was a Presbyterian, and you know, Presbyterians

31:46

are awfully laid back type people. You

31:48

know, if anything, they're very unemotional, and

31:50

they drive their wives crazy, many of

31:52

these Presbyterian missionaries and so on. Very,

31:54

very laid back, and when he says,

31:56

I saw people demon possessed, I believe

31:58

him. I probably saw a lot

32:00

of people demon possessed that

32:02

he wouldn't believe were demon possessed just because

32:04

the last thing a Presbyterian wants to

32:08

admit is that there's a demon here.

32:10

Presbyterians like to write it off for everything. He

32:12

was a very, very educated man. He was a

32:14

very reserved man. And

32:16

when Nevius wrote that he saw demon possession,

32:18

I believe him. And

32:21

what he said was after years of trying

32:23

all kinds of hocus pocus, after years of

32:25

trying to cast them out with commands, he

32:28

found out that there was one thing that always worked.

32:30

You know what it was? Any idea?

32:33

He sat down and read scripture. He

32:35

read scripture. He read scripture. He read scripture

32:37

for five minutes, for ten minutes, for fifteen

32:39

minutes, for half an hour. He

32:42

read scripture. He says, I got far better results that way than

32:44

anything else I ever did. Why?

32:47

See, he was not superstitious.

32:49

He's not substitious. He understands that the

32:51

power of temptation,

32:53

the power of self-control, the power of

32:55

the devil is lies. By the way, I know

32:57

plenty of people who don't believe in the devil at

33:00

all who have come to understand

33:02

that. They

33:04

realize that underneath the bad feelings, underneath

33:06

the bad behavior is distortion. It

33:10

works. It's true. And it's

33:12

the secret to temptation and self-control. So all

33:15

temptation strategies of

33:18

your flesh and any demonic actors

33:22

outside are really strategies of getting

33:24

you to believe lies. So how do you deal

33:26

with self-control? It's fairly simple but

33:28

very complex and it will take you years to

33:30

find out your own particular map. The

33:33

way in which your own heart tries to deceive you,

33:35

the heart is deceitful and wicked above anything,

33:38

who can know it, the Bible says. Your

33:40

heart is trying to deceive you. There's demonic

33:42

powers that are trying to deceive you. Don't

33:44

sit down and try to figure out, you know, well, is

33:46

that a demon that put that thought in my mind or

33:48

something like that? That's silly. Demonic

33:51

powers in your flesh are always involved in all these

33:53

things. So don't try to pull them apart in some

33:56

ways. Find out what the

33:58

lies are and everybody's map is different. I'll

34:00

just give you an example of some of

34:02

the lies that are there with all of

34:04

us, and then the kinds of lies that

34:06

can be operating in different people's lives. Look,

34:08

number one, the main lie, the first lie,

34:11

the lie we just read here in Genesis three is

34:14

this. Can I

34:16

paraphrase it? It goes like this,

34:18

look at the handout. Sin

34:20

will fulfill you. It

34:23

is sweeter, it is healthier,

34:26

it is more natural than obedience. If

34:29

you do it, you will be

34:31

growing. If you don't do

34:34

it, you will miss out. You

34:37

will put limits on yourself. You

34:39

will be restricted. Now

34:43

there's many variations on this, but you see the

34:45

devil basically came in in Genesis five, Genesis three

34:47

verse five, and says, if you obey, you'll be

34:49

held back. You'll

34:52

cut yourself off from so much potential.

34:55

If you reach out and get it, you'll be more

34:58

like God. As a matter of fact, the

35:00

devil had a real sense of irony. If

35:02

she reached out and get it, she put herself in the place

35:04

of God. She became her own

35:07

God. So he knew what he was

35:09

talking about. Just that Eve was

35:11

then able to foresee what the response would

35:13

be. So there's a certain

35:15

sense in which we could say

35:19

that that's the basic lie. It

35:22

is amazing how much you may find if

35:24

you know your own heart, this is operating,

35:26

it's constantly operating. If I am absolutely completely

35:28

obedient in every area of my life, I'm

35:31

gonna have problems in my business life, I'm gonna have

35:33

problems in my relationship life, I'm gonna have problems, it's

35:35

nice to be a little religious, it's nice to be

35:37

a little moral, but if you go too much, if

35:40

you get too extreme, if you get extremely fastidious

35:42

in obeying every part of the law of God,

35:45

you are gonna miss out. That

35:47

was the first lie. What

35:50

I just said to a lot of you, it

35:52

made sense. In fact, maybe to all of you it made sense. It

35:55

sort of made sense to me there, I

35:57

was ready to preach against it. It makes sense when I say

35:59

it. because it's operating

36:01

down deep. I don't

36:03

know how many times I've had people say to me, you've

36:09

shown me that there's something to Christianity.

36:12

In fact, some of you may be thinking this

36:14

tonight or have been thinking this as you've been

36:16

attending lately. You've shown me that there's something to

36:18

Christianity, but I

36:20

wanna live a little bit first. I'll

36:23

be back. You

36:27

know what you're saying? I put down in

36:29

the handout this. For

36:32

years I used to say, well, be

36:34

careful. I mean, I want you to come

36:36

back and you never know and you really

36:38

ought to come to Christ now, but if

36:41

you're gonna come back that's better than not

36:43

coming back at all. I began to realize

36:45

that the person who believes that about Jesus

36:47

Christ can't come to Jesus Christ because you're

36:50

looking at a false Jesus Christ. If you

36:52

believe that disobedience is more delicious and satisfying,

36:54

more life-giving than

36:57

Jesus, then you are looking at Jesus

36:59

Christ as fire insurance, period. And

37:03

you're not even looking at Jesus, you're looking at Jesus through the

37:05

lie. The

37:07

reason to come to Jesus Christ is not for fire insurance,

37:09

it's because you know that he is your life. I am

37:11

the way, the truth, and the life. And

37:14

if you don't come to him and see him

37:16

as your life, you can't come to him. You can't come

37:18

to him as fire insurance. You can't come to him as

37:20

a kind of sugar daddy. You've been out there spending all

37:22

your money and now you're broke and you say, well,

37:25

what can I do to sweet talk him and get some more? I

37:28

mean, that's not the way Jesus is. That

37:31

is the kind of thing that operates down deep inside

37:33

all of us. And it's really the

37:35

base lie out of which all the other lies come. Now,

37:39

look here though. Beyond

37:42

that, the second thing you

37:44

have to realize about temptation, how

37:46

the devil gets us to sin or how the

37:48

devil pulls us away from Christianity or so on,

37:50

a lot of you, almost, it seems

37:53

like one out of every three people I talk to in

37:55

New York is what I call a

37:57

recovering Christian. You know what a recovering Christian is? You

38:00

had some kind of Christian walk, you had some kind

38:02

of Christian profession before you came to New York, you

38:05

know, three years ago, five years ago, eight years ago,

38:07

ten years ago, and then you went into utter spiritual

38:09

darkness when you got here. And

38:11

you completely let go of any of your Christian profession

38:13

or any of your Christian walk, and you did everything

38:15

you could, and now you're saying, I'm empty, I need

38:18

to come to Christ, and people are saying, am

38:20

I a backslidden real Christian, or am I just coming

38:22

to Christ for the first time? And the answer is,

38:25

I don't know, you don't know, but

38:27

it doesn't matter, because what you have to

38:29

do is the same under any circumstances. You

38:32

have to go to Him, and you have to give your life to Him and

38:34

say, Lord, I turn for my

38:36

sins, and I rest on Jesus Christ, and I give

38:38

myself to You as if I've never done it before.

38:41

Now, but recovering Christians very often

38:43

don't realize how they got into

38:46

that, how they fall down into the darkness.

38:49

It usually starts with little preparatory

38:52

sins. Look at your, quick, look

38:54

at your handout.

38:56

I keep forgetting what this thing is. This

38:59

piece of paper with writing on it, little

39:01

preparatory sins that lead to bigger ones.

39:05

Notice what the devil does. He says,

39:08

has God said you

39:10

must not touch any of the trees of

39:12

the garden? Look at that, verse five. He

39:15

says, oh, pardon

39:18

me, it's actually verse one. Did

39:21

God really say you must not

39:23

eat from any tree in the garden? I

39:26

want you to see what he's done. First

39:28

of all, he's exaggerated.

39:32

The original command was not that you can't eat

39:34

of any tree in the garden. The original command

39:36

was you can't eat of that one tree. And

39:39

he already came along and said, did

39:41

God really say that you couldn't eat that?

39:43

Now, there's an insinuation in there, isn't there?

39:47

You don't think Satan would walk in and say, oh, God,

39:49

that liar he told you, he wouldn't do

39:52

that. Instead,

39:54

he comes in and he insinuates that

39:56

God is being unfair. He

39:58

insinuates that God is being unfair. is

40:00

a drag. He insinuates

40:02

that he insinuates. And

40:05

next thing you know, Eve is exaggerating as

40:07

well. Unless you read

40:10

this real carefully, you don't see

40:12

how subtle the sin starts. Little

40:14

tiny sins, very small sins. Eve

40:17

exaggerates. She says, no, we're not allowed to

40:19

eat of any tree in the garden and

40:21

we're not allowed to touch any. Did

40:24

you see where she says that? We're not even allowed to touch

40:26

it. Does God say we're not allowed to touch it? What's she

40:28

doing? The first

40:30

sin is not

40:33

when you begin to disobey the commandment. The first

40:36

sin is when you begin to resent the

40:38

commandment. That's

40:40

the beginning. Because you're

40:42

beginning to put yourself on the throne

40:45

and you're saying, yes, I

40:47

see that this command is not practical.

40:50

You hear that? It's not practical. This

40:52

command is going to get in the way of

40:54

something that I want to be and do. This

40:57

command, I

40:59

can't swing unless I

41:01

get out from under this command. I've got to

41:03

get out from under its clammy fingers. And

41:06

so the first sin, she begins to

41:08

resent it. She begins

41:11

to exaggerate. She begins to make it

41:13

worse than it really is. And that's

41:15

the reason why even here you see how

41:17

sins always begin in the very, very, very

41:19

smallest doses. And that's

41:21

why I put down, if you look carefully, you'll see

41:23

at least four sins and then five. First

41:26

of all, she bought the first lie. The

41:29

first lie was an insinuation that God

41:31

was unfair. Incinuation. She

41:34

bought the first lie and so she committed the first sin, which

41:36

was to resent it. And then

41:38

she began to desire the fruit, which

41:40

was the second sin. She fantasized. She

41:44

looked at the fruit and says, and she saw that

41:46

it was good to eat. What do you mean she

41:49

saw it was good to eat? She was sitting there

41:51

and imagining eating it. And that led to the

41:53

third sin when she decided to eat it. Because

41:56

she was just fantasized. She was, well, I don't think I

41:58

should do this, but boy, would really look

42:00

good. She was desiring it. Then the third thing she

42:02

did was she actually decided to eat it. And the

42:05

fourth thing, she finally ate it. The fifth thing, she

42:07

got Adam to do it too. All

42:09

in seven verses. And

42:12

all of history came tumbling down around their ears.

42:15

It starts small. In

42:17

many of your cases, it started very small.

42:19

Very small. In fact, it started so small,

42:22

you still don't see where it started. It

42:24

started when you began to resent the

42:26

Christian faith. It started when you

42:28

began to resent the idea of a God who could

42:31

tell you how to live your life. The

42:34

mark of a godly man is

42:36

that he or she loves to have God tell

42:38

him what to do. It says in

42:41

Psalm 1, the

42:43

mark of the godly man, what is the mark of the godly

42:45

man in Psalm 1? Is it that he preaches on the street

42:47

corners day and night, or that he witnesses day and night, or

42:49

he prays day and night? It says he loves the law of

42:51

God, and on it he meditates day and night. He loves to

42:54

have God tell him what to do. That's

42:57

where it starts. Now, over

43:01

in the back of your sheet... Sexual

43:09

sin, for example, has

43:12

got plenty of stages to it. A

43:14

lot of people say, what am I going to do about

43:16

my sex drives? I just can't seem to deal with it.

43:18

Well, you've got to realize you've got to break it down.

43:20

If you're going to understand, you have to break it down.

43:22

It's sort of like time-lapse photography. You

43:25

can't really get on top of a

43:28

self-control problem unless you can slow it

43:30

down into each frame and see the

43:32

connections and see the links. Generally

43:34

speaking, in sexual sin, you've got

43:37

the thought. It

43:39

occurs to you. It occurs to you. But

43:42

then what do you do with it? Nothing wrong with

43:44

the thought occurring to you. Just as

43:46

Glenn was reminding you about the little proverb, there's

43:48

nothing wrong with birds flying around your head. That

43:50

was from Martin Luther, by the way. Probably

43:53

Manford Goodski probably got it from Martin Luther. Not

43:55

the other way around. You can't stop birds from flying

43:57

around your head, but you can stop them from... making

44:00

nests in your hair. The

44:02

thought occurs, then what? Then

44:04

if you want to, you can weigh. You

44:07

can weigh it. That's where

44:09

the sin begins. You know, Achan,

44:12

Achan was a man who was in the Israelite

44:14

army back in the book of Judges, and

44:17

the Bible, in the Bible where

44:19

God told the Israelites that when they plundered

44:21

a city, they weren't allowed to take any

44:23

of the gold and the riches for themselves.

44:25

Instead, they had to put them in the

44:27

tabernacle. And we're told that Achan came in

44:29

and when he was there plundering a city,

44:32

he looked at the gold and he saw

44:34

it, it says, and he saw that the

44:36

gold bars weighed this much. And he saw

44:38

that the jewelry was very fine and

44:40

he saw that the robes were very beautiful.

44:42

What does that mean he saw? How would

44:45

he know how much the gold weighed? How

44:48

would he know how beautiful the jewelry was?

44:50

He was assessing it. He was thinking about

44:52

it. He was in there weighing

44:55

it. He was already

44:58

resenting the commandment. And

45:01

that was the second step. The third step is

45:04

fantasy. You sit and you say, well,

45:06

I'm not going to do it and be wrong to

45:08

do it, but I'm going to think about doing it. And boy, it's pretty nice.

45:11

The fourth step is fantasy

45:13

helps. We can go all the

45:15

way with a fantasy. The fifth step is

45:18

an action. You can see it with

45:20

David and Bathsheba. Why did

45:22

David end up falling in love with Bathsheba, burning

45:24

adultery with her and killing her husband in order

45:26

to get her? Where do you think

45:28

it started? If you read carefully the

45:30

passage and do it sometime, you'll see it

45:32

says that David was at home during

45:35

the season when kings went out to war. David

45:37

was being lazy, you see.

45:39

There was work to be done and David was

45:42

at home when he should have been out on

45:44

the battlefield. And on that day, that was his

45:46

first thing. He just began to get lazy. Then

45:48

he saw Bathsheba and he saw how beautiful she

45:50

was. What do you mean saw how beautiful she

45:52

was? She saw him because she was taking a

45:54

bath on a roof and he saw through the

45:57

window. He looked, he weighed. Then the next step

45:59

is he fantasized. next step he probably did

46:01

some fantasy helps and the next step

46:03

he acted. You got to

46:05

break it down and you got to see how it

46:07

comes on up. Okay I

46:09

got to say something about seasons. I

46:12

would like to you to know that temptations tend

46:14

to come four special times. You need

46:16

to always be on your lookout at any

46:18

one of these four times. It's number four

46:20

on the back. The special seasons are post-conversion

46:23

letdown. Not

46:26

long after you're converted, Satan will come along

46:28

to try to show you some part of

46:30

your life that's out of control. He'll show

46:32

you the impatience, he'll show you the lust,

46:34

he'll show you the anger and what he

46:36

wants to do, new Christians have very little

46:39

understanding of grace. You

46:41

say I'm saved by grace not by works but basically

46:43

you think you're saved because you were so wonderful as

46:45

to give your life to him and when Satan shows

46:47

you he gets some of your sin to erupt, he

46:49

get cast down, you lose your assurance and you wonder

46:51

if you're a Christian at all. That's

46:53

post-conversion letdown, a very very typical way

46:56

in which Satan comes in tempts. A

46:58

second season is very important is

47:00

whenever you decide to step up into a

47:02

greater role in God's kingdom, whenever

47:05

you decide I'm gonna do something more for God than

47:07

I was before. You know what you're doing literally? What

47:10

you're literally doing is you were back here on the back

47:12

lines of the army and you

47:14

moved up to the front lines and suddenly there's

47:16

bullets flying everywhere and you're gonna take one in

47:18

the shoulder. It's very very possible because you know

47:20

the enemy aims for the people on the front

47:22

lines. They aim for the captains, they aim for

47:24

the lieutenants. You know they don't aim for the

47:26

quarter masters, they can't see the quarter masters from

47:28

there and the quarter masters can't do a whole

47:30

lot of damage to the enemy but when you

47:32

step up and do something greater for the kingdom

47:35

you're on the front lines. A third area

47:37

is during hard times and afflictions. That means

47:41

when you're going through the tough times of your

47:44

life there's a tendency to think

47:46

that a certain sin might

47:48

relieve you. You're having economic problems

47:50

so you're tempted to be dishonest. You're

47:53

being lonely, you're tempted to have sex with somebody you

47:55

shouldn't. It's during times of

47:57

affliction when it looks like the way of relief that you're

47:59

trying trouble is on the far side of a sin.

48:30

The sermon was recorded in 1990. The sermons

48:32

and talks you hear on the Gospel in

48:34

Life podcast were preached from 1989 to

48:37

2017, while Dr. Keller was

48:39

senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.