Leading The Way

Announcer: On today's episode of Leading The Way, Dr. Michael Youssef distributes tools for defeating temptation.

Dr. Michael Youssef: When tempted, no one should say, "God is tempting me." For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is dragged away by his own evil desire and enticed. And after the desire is conceived, it gives birth to sin. And sin, when it's fully grown, gives birth to death. Beloved, temptation does not come from God. It comes from the enemy of your soul.

Announcer: Those few words from the book of James reveal a lot about Satan's strategies to drag you far away from God. But as you listen to this Leading The Way, Dr. Michael Youssef offers encouragement for defeating temptation.

Please do remember that Leading The Way is a listener-supported, worldwide media ministry. Dr. Youssef and the team rely on the prayers and the generosity of those who experience blessings and encouragement as they listen and grow through this biblical teaching. So, won't you partner with Dr. Youssef today? Give us a call: 866-626-4356. Or, we're at LTW.org. You can do that right now, but I encourage you to wait until after the message. Dr. Michael Youssef is right here, ready to begin. Listen with me.

Dr. Michael Youssef: I don't have to tell you that every one of you, every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, face crucial decisions every single day. Many decisions. Why? Because every day the enemy of your soul has pointed at you an unseen weapon, pointed at your heart and pointed at your mind.

Every day he is tempting believers to quit and drop out of the marathon of faith. Every one of us knows that temptation. What is that temptation? Listen very carefully. The greatest temptation of all is whether we acknowledge our sin and confess it or deny it and rationalize it.

I always love to tell the story of a kid who was always eating cookies before dinnertime. And his mother kept telling him not to do it, not to do it, but he kept eating. He said, "Mom, the devil made me do it." So she said, "Okay, here's the deal. Next time the devil tempts you to eat cookies before dinner, just say what the Bible said: 'Get behind me, Satan.'"

Sure enough, a few days later, she goes to the neighborhood and visiting and comes back before dinner time and the cookie jar was empty. She said, "Bobby, did not I tell you that when the devil tempts you, say, 'Get behind me, Satan'?" He said, "Mom, I did. And as soon as he got behind me, he pushed me straight into the cookie jar."

I know we can laugh at this, but I'm going to tell you right now that we, as adults, do the same thing. Every time we eat the forbidden fruit, what do we say? "That's my parents' fault and it's my wife's fault, it's my husband's fault. It's my boss's fault, somebody's fault." The list goes on.

And it all began in the Garden of Eden. When God confronted Adam about his sin, what did he say? "Sorry, Lord, I I abdicated my spiritual responsibility, my headship of the home. I am so sorry, Father, I fell in this trap and I'm..." Did he do that? The courageous man blamed his wife. "My wife made me do it."

And when God confronts Eve, what did she say? "The devil made me do it." And ever since that time, this false response to sin and shame and guilt has been repeated in every heart, in every heart. "I just couldn't help it. She drove me to it. I was lonely and I needed someone. I needed money and I just had to do this. Anyone in my situation would have done the same thing." My goodness, it never stops.

But did you know that actually God is the one who gets the lion's share of blame? "God allowed me to be in this situation. God did not stop me. He could have stopped me, but he didn't. God created me with these lustful desires in my heart. God allowed me to be tempted. It's God's fault. Really, it's God's fault for giving me free will."

That's basically the vast majority in our culture. The other extreme is people who beat themselves to death with guilt. Some are real guilt, but most times it's false guilt. Let me give you an example.

Parents who have raised up their children in a Christian home, to the best of their ability, they imparted to them biblical principles to live by. They tried to model their lives to their children. But one of them goes into a rebellion stage. He rebels against God, he rebels against his parents' teaching, he rebels against all the things that he or she knows to be the truth.

What happened in some of these extreme circumstances? Parents beat themselves up. "Maybe I should have done this. Maybe I shouldn't have done that. Maybe I should have said this. Maybe I should have..." And constantly beating themselves up, and on and on and on.

Now, whether the guilt feelings you suffer deserved or not, and whether these guilt feelings you suffer authentic or not, listen to me, this is a spiritual sickness and needs to be dealt with spiritually. God wants to deliver you from shame and fear of guilt and sin. That's what He came from heaven for. The scripture is very clear. We should not live a life that is mired with guilt, real or false.

Jesus Christ came from heaven, died on a cross, shed His blood, rose again on the third day so that He might deliver us not just from sin, but guilt.

Now, Book of James, verses 13, 14 and 15. "When tempted, no one should say, 'God is tempting me.' For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is dragged away by his own evil desire and enticed. And after the desire is conceived, it gives birth to sin. And sin, when it's fully grown, gives birth to death."

Beloved, temptation does not come from God. Can you say that with me? Temptation does not come from God. It comes from the enemy of your soul. Satan tempts us by appealing to our desires. And when our desires become uncontrollable, it becomes like a river in a rage.

Now, the river is beautiful. It's magnificent between its banks as it flows with beautiful fresh water. But when it goes into a rage, it goes out of control, it sweeps everything in its path. And the very blessing in the river of the river becomes a curse. Sex is a gift from God, and it is to be used within those banks of the river of marriage between one husband and one wife.

But sexual perversion is like that raging river, it destroys everything in its path. And the way Satan attacks us or tempts us is a double-barreled shotgun. One barrel is aimed at our mind and the other one is aimed at our eye. And he's constantly going back and forth, the mind, the eye, the mind, the eye.

In fact, that's exactly what he did with Eve. First he came to the mind, and he said to her, "Oh, what a beautiful garden you've got. I wish I could live in a garden like this. Oh, girl, you've got it made." What is he doing? He's numbing the mind. He is anesthetizing the mind. And as soon as he gets the mind anesthetized, what happens? He goes to the eye. "Oh, just look at the beautiful tree in the middle of the garden." Not the thousands of other trees, but just that one in the middle of the garden.

"I bet the fruit is luscious. Oh, girl, let me tell you, the fruit is to die for." Pardon the pun. Because she did die spiritually. And he went back and forth. The mind, the eye. The mind, the eye.

Eve says, "No, no, no, no, you don't understand. That tree is forbidden." "Oh, really? Forbidden? Oh, I suppose God just doesn't want you to have fun. He doesn't want you to take control of things. Oh, what a selfish God he must be, forbidding you from something that's so good, so delicious. Too bad. He wants to keep all the good things to himself."

What is Satan doing? He's bringing doubt to her mind about the goodness of God and the mercy of God and the fact that God has our best interest at heart. Here's something you must never forget: Satan could never force you to do anything. He cannot force you to do anything you don't want to do. Oh, he lures you, he tempts you. He he worms his way into your thoughts, but he can never force you to do what you don't want to do.

Listen, Eve made a choice. You and I make choices. To be sure, we like to pretend that we're really are victims of our circumstances, we're victims of our upbringing, we're victims of our schools, we're victims of our society, we're victims and we don't have a choice. Really? And that's why in other language, we basically go back and saying, "Hey, the devil made me do it."

But resisting and fleeing temptation is the second evidence that you have saving faith and daily faith. If you claim to have faith, you contradict the very claim by always, underline the word always, or habitually falling in that temptation. And the reason I said always and habitually for a reason, because every one of us, at some point, somewhere, sometime we're going to fumble, and we do fumble.

But I'm talking about the one who says, "I just have no power over this. I'm just going to be." It's victim. Did you know that 20% of the Lord's Prayer, 20%, has to do with power over temptation? 20%. "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one."

Listen to me. You pray this prayer every time you are tempted to fly off the handle. You pray this prayer every time you are tempted to betray your marriage vows. You pray this prayer every time you are tempted to go into pornographic sites. You pray this prayer every time you are tempted to use substance in order to numb your senses, and you will experience the power of God strengthening you to overcome. That's the second evidence of faith.

Let me give you three principle ways in which Satan tempts us. He tempts us spiritually. He tempts us mentally. And he tempts us physically. How does he tempt us spiritually? By bringing doubt in our minds, constant doubt. "Did God, does God exist? And if he exists, does he really care about your little problem? He's so busy running the world. Is the Bible really relevant for today? I mean, look at all these things that we don't practice that's in the Bible. Can the Bible really be trusted as God breathed? Is it really God's own revelation? Are you really saved and your sins are forgiven?" And on and on and on.

But he doesn't doesn't stop there. He goes into tempting us mentally. After he works us over spiritually, he goes into our mind and into our eye, just like he did with Eve.

Listen, I'm going to interrupt myself here because it's important that you win or lose the battle for your mind the moment you wake up in the morning. The very first few minutes of the day can decide whether you're winning or losing the battle for the day. It's like computer, you know, garbage in, garbage out. If you continuously feed your mind with false information, you're going to experience false results. If you continuously fill your mind with sinful images, your actions will be defiled.

The battle for your mind begins the first moment you wake up. You see, how you start your day will make all the difference in the world whether you lose or gain that battle for the mind. The moment your feet hit the ground from your bed, go knee first. He said, "What does that mean? Fall on my..." Well, before you do anything, the first hour of the day spent with God in prayer and reading of His word.

You will be amazed at the transformation after several weeks of doing this. You'll be amazed at the change that begin to take part in your life. He tempts us spiritually, he tempts us mentally, but then also tempts us physically. How? Oh, let me count the ways.

You face frustration, frustrating situation, and before you know it, you flew off the handle. This happened to me other day. I was singing praises to God, and somebody cut in front of me. I'm confessing to you, I know you know what I'm talking about.

You got a cantankerous boss or a cantankerous coworker said something to you that angered you, and you start swearing and cursing, and you fall into sin. You might begin as a social drinker and then all of a sudden, you see yourself fully addicted. You see an opportunity to cheat, and you take it to the next level.

But the most common physical temptation is when he lures us by somebody else other than your husband or your wife. How quickly we set aside our faith conviction. Listen to me, the Bible does not change because some pastor said it's changed. I'm telling you, the Bible makes it clear that adultery, or fornication, or homosexuality, or any expression of sex outside of a marriage between a husband and wife is a sin and grievous unto the Lord.

Hear me right. The thing is, Satan never gives up, constantly trying, trying. I'm sure some of you are probably asking, you said, "Michael, well, what's the difference between trials and temptation, or temptations and testing?" You talked about trials and testing last time. What's the difference? I'm glad you asked because I am anxious to tell you.

If you have a pen, write it down. There's a world of difference between testing and temptation. Here we go. We enjoy temptation, but we detest testing. Temptation involves pleasure, testing involves unpleasantness. Temptation is easy, testing is hard. Testing says, "Sacrifice your desires." But temptation says, "Satisfy your desires."

Now, James puts his finger on the difference between testing and temptation. Of course, in verse 13, he says, "When we are tempted, no one should say, 'God tempted me.'" So, what's the answer? Confession. Do you know when you confess sin, when you really own up to your sin, you're basically agreeing with God? God knows you did it. You know you did it. You might as well agree with God, because when you do agree with God, he gives you victory over it, and he forgives it.

But rationalizing sin or passing blame will never give you victory. And that is why John said, "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us." But if we what? Confess. He will forgive us. Shifting the blame is an evidence that you don't have a living faith.

What makes us vulnerable to temptation? Verses 16 and 17. After he says God doesn't tempt us, he goes on to say, "Don't be deceived." This is important, underline if you want. "Don't be deceived. For every good and perfect gift is from where? Above." Do you know what the greatest gift, next to our salvation, the greatest gift that comes from above? The Holy Spirit. God's own breath, God's own Spirit to come and to dwell in us, to empower us.

And therefore, when you find yourself trapped in the grips of sin and pleasures and evil desires, it's because you don't value the gift of the Holy Spirit. Oh, you know about it, you read in the scripture, but you don't daily, moment by moment, allow the power of the Holy Spirit to fill you to overflowing. And it's not because you leak that you need the Holy Spirit more and more. But the Holy Spirit is a wind. And as the wind pulls the sail and pulls the boat, you need that Holy Spirit to direct you and to lead you and to take you to the right direction.

When you don't daily yield to the control of the surpassing strength of the Holy Spirit, you'll fumble. You'll fumble. Far from tempting us, God gives us the greatest gift, His own breath, His own Spirit. Why? So that we may overcome temptation every time. So that we may be able to have victory every time. So that we may be able to flee temptation.

Here's something very important I want to tell you, because I know there are some Christians who think, "Yeah, Michael, I agree with you, great, great." And they think that the Christian life is lived gritting your teeth. "I don't want to be tempted. I don't want to be tempted. I don't want to be tempted." And they're living uptight life.

I remember back when I learned to drive gear shift, and especially when you're uphill and you don't know where you put you know, the brakes or the and the car goes down, and you accelerate and Some people actually think that's how they live the Christian life. No, no, no, my beloved friend. That's not how it works. In fact, that is why James tells us, "Don't be deceived."

D.L. Moody probably said it best and I can't improve on it. D.L. Moody used to teach the classes of his students at Moody Bible Institute now, but one of his most important memorable lessons is he would take an empty glass and he would say to the students, "How do I get rid of the air?" "Get a vacuum and suck the air out." And everybody comes up with an idea. Finally, he takes a pitcher of water and he fills the glass. And he said, "The way you do it is you crowd the air out."

Beloved, listen to me, that's how you overcome. You fill to overflowing, moment by moment, constantly surrendering to the power of the Holy Spirit, and temptation gets crowded out. You'll have joy. You have peace. You're relaxed, not in your own strength, but the strength of the one who's upholding you with his right hand. You see, you will experience the joy of victory every time. Your temptation comes, you're filled with the Holy Spirit. "I don't need this. I'm made for a higher calling. I'm made for the glory of God." And immediately, you're able to overcome temptation.

Announcer: If you missed any portion of today's Leading The Way message from Dr. Michael Youssef, or you want to listen to more of his series, "The 12 Evidences of Faith," download the Leading The Way app, or stream from the archives. You can also subscribe to the podcast. Links and information can be found at LTW.org.

Now, as we close out this episode, I'd like to share a quick story from our team in North Africa. They received a note from a thankful wife, speaking quite candidly about her husband, who was saved from a life brimming with hate. Listen, be encouraged by the transformational power of the Gospel. She writes:

Guest (Female): My husband was recently saved after hearing Leading The Way and speaking with your staff. He then began attending a class at a church and was even baptized. He is growing in his new faith. I wish he had found Christ earlier because he is a much better person and our home finally has peace.

Announcer: Friends, the team in North Africa also shared that his wife, the one who's writing this, is not yet a believer, and yet she and her home have experienced the impact of the Gospel, and she realizes that. Just another example of how Leading The Way with Dr. Michael Youssef is sharing the transformational power of the Gospel, right there in your neighborhood, and in neighborhoods just like yours all around the world. We're seeing how God's love is impacting lives and families and communities.

So, won't you partner with Dr. Youssef today? Here's the number: 866-626-4356. Or LTW.org.

Announcer: The world feels more unstable with each passing day. Millions are searching for the only anchor that holds, Jesus Christ. Who will reach them? Through Leading The Way's June Gift Challenge, you can answer the call. You can share Jesus with those lost in darkness. $1 million has already been committed. Now, it's your turn. Through Leading The Way's fiscal year-end gift challenge, your gift will have double the impact, reaching real people who desperately need gospel truth. Stand with Dr. Michael Youssef. Stand and share Jesus. Stand for the truth. Double your impact today and invest in someone's eternal future. Here at home, in the Middle East, and in remote villages. Contact Leading The Way to give a generous gift today.

Announcer: Get additional details when you call us and speak with a ministry representative. We're at 866-626-4356, or online, LTW.org. This program is brought to you by Leading The Way with Dr. Michael Youssef.