Pathway to Victory

Speaker 1

Hey podcast listeners. Thanks for streaming today's podcast from Pathway to Victory and Dr. Robert Jeffress.

We're dedicated to bringing you bold biblical teaching that transforms your life and strengthens your walk with God.

And you can study God's word alongside Dr. Jeffress in person on the 2026 Pathway to Victory cruise to Alaska.

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Have you ever witnessed the breathtaking majesty of massive glaciers rising from crystal blue waters? Or stood in awe as bald eagles soar over snow-capped mountains?

I want you to experience these unforgettable moments with me on the Pathway to Victory Cruise to Alaska, June 13th through 20th, 2026.

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Join Dr. Jeffress and the Pathway to Victory family for a spectacular seven-day adventure aboard Holland America's luxurious Koningsdam.

Indulge in elegant staterooms, world-class dining, and expansive decks perfect for breathtaking views.

Visit historic ports like Juneau, Skagway, and Ketchikan, where wilderness and frontier history await.

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There's something powerful about connecting with God and fellow believers in the majesty of his untamed wilderness. I truly believe this journey will refresh you spiritually, physically and emotionally.

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Cabins are filling quickly, so reserve yours today. To book your spot on the 2026 Pathway to Victory cruise to Alaska, call 888-280-6747 or go to ptv.org now here's today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.

Speaker 2

Hi, this is Robert Jeffress and I'm glad to study God's Word with you every day on this Bible teaching program.

On today's edition of Pathway to Victory, when we're confronted with temptation, we take a passive attitude. We excuse disobedience by saying, remember the old comedian Flip Wilson, the devil made me do it. We refuse to take responsibility for sin. We think we're victims.

But James, the half brother of Jesus, offers a different perspective on temptation and sin.

Speaker 1

Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor, Dr. Robert Jeffress. You know, we've all felt the magnetic pull of temptation. That moment when something we know is wrong suddenly becomes irresistible.

But here's the good news. Giving in to temptation, it's not inevitable. Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress shares practical biblical strategies for resisting the enemy's schemes and walking in victory.

But first, let's take a minute to hear some important ministry updates.

Speaker 2

Thanks, David, and welcome to a brand new week of Bible teaching on Pathway to Victory. Our study in the Book of James continues today. You know, many Christians think they're just victims of their circumstances. That when temptation strikes, they have no real choice but to give in. But those assumptions take us to unhealthy places. You see, as Christians, we are not powerless. Today, I want to show you what James teaches about temptation and sin. His spirit-inspired counsel completely changes how we handle temptation. When Satan dangles his bait in front of us, God offers us the power to resist.

In addition to this practical teaching series on Pathway to Victory, I've written a book for you. There's a whole chapter devoted to overcoming temptation. But that's not all. In my book, I show you how to take control of your speech and how to stay strong when adversity comes your way. My book is titled "How to Know If You're Really Saved: A Study in the Book of James." I'd be pleased to send a copy to your home when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory. Stay with us through the end of today's program because we'll describe how to get in touch with Pathway to Victory. Plus, we'll describe the other helpful resources prepared for this study in the Book of James, including a group discussion guide, the audio CDs, the video DVDs, and more.

But right now, let's turn to James Chapter One as we consider this very important topic. I titled today's message "How to Handle Temptation." Turn to James Chapter One as we discover how to handle temptation. I call verse 14 the temptation equation: "But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust." Look at the components that lead up to sin. Write it down on your outline: corrupt desires plus the right bait plus a wrong choice equals sin. Let's look at each of those components.

First of all, corrupt desires. Each person is tempted when he is carried away. That's what "carried away" refers to: corrupt inward desires. We have corrupt desires plus the right bait. There's an external cause of temptation as well. The right bait is indicated by the word "enticed." Each person is tempted when he is carried away and enticed. How does this bait work with our corrupt desires to produce sin? Remember, corrupt desires plus the right bait plus the wrong choices. That's what verse 15 says: "Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin. And when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death."

Now, what kind of death is he talking about? Is he talking about physical death? He could be. That word "thanatos" in Greek means separation. Physical death is the separation of our spirit from our body. And sometimes in the life of a Christian, sin produces physical death. It's not a particular sin that causes God to take your life, but it's a state of sinning. That is, you get so hardened to sin that in some instances, God takes your life. You are a miserable witness for Jesus Christ. You are leading other people astray. God sometimes says it would be better to take this child and call him home than to leave him here and disrupt my reputation. There is sin unto death. So I think when James talks about sin bringing forth death, he is referring sometimes to physical death.

But that word "thanatos" also means a separation of our spirit from God—a separation from God. Now, as a Christian, we don't have to worry about eternal separation from God. Paul says in Romans 8, "For I'm convinced that nothing can ever separate us from the love of God." Jesus said in John 10:28-30, "I give eternal life to them, and they shall never perish. No man shall snatch them out of my hands, those whom the Father has given me." That can never change. Positionally, once you're a part of God's family, you're always a part of God's family. But even though sin doesn't affect our positional relationship with God, it can affect our relational fellowship with God. Sin can break our fellowship with our Heavenly Father. When we sin, we put up a wall of separation that keeps us from wanting to seek fellowship with God because we feel guilty.

You know, I remember so well the first report card I ever got in the first grade. Can anybody remember their first report card? I was so anxious to see how I had done. On the left-hand side, there were all the academic subjects: arithmetic, reading, social studies, and so forth. I had mostly A's and a few B's. But on the right side of that card was what they called citizenship—your attitude, your friendliness, your obedience to the teacher. The way they graded that was either by an S for satisfactory or an U for unsatisfactory. I looked over at that side of my card and saw all S's. In my first-grade logic, I said to myself, "Now, if A is the best you can do and F is the worst you can do, what in the world does S mean? Does that mean I'm about to be expelled as I start out my academic career?" I was scared to death. I folded that card up and hid it under my bed for three days, not wanting to show my parents because I was sure I had done something wrong. I didn't have any desire to talk to them or to be with them. What I thought was sin had broken my relationship with my parents. That's the same way with real sin in our life and God. Guilt wants us to run from God; it produces a separation from God.

I think it's that kind of what one writer calls a deathlike existence that David experienced after his sin with Bathsheba. Remember in Psalm 32:3-4, he said, "When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me; my vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer." Because David did not confess his sin, he felt the weight of God's hand on his life, and he was at a distance from God. In the same way, James says sin in our life destroys, in a practical way, our relationship with God.

Notice his final warning about temptation in verse 16: "Do not be deceived, my brethren." That hook that looks so appetizing, that bait that looks so appetizing has a hidden hook in it that will destroy everything important to you. That sin will destroy your practical relationship with God. It may destroy your marriage, it may destroy your witness for Christ, it may mean the death of your career, but sin always results in death.

Is there any victory over sin? Are we bound inevitably to sin? No. Romans 8:2 says we can have freedom over every temptation that comes into our life. Listen to the words of Romans 8:2 in the Living Bible: "For the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed me from the vicious circle of sin and death." If you're a Christian, you have the resurrection power of Jesus Christ in your life. The same Holy Spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead is at work in your life to deliver you from the power of sin. Giving in to temptation isn't inevitable, but God's power is not enough. That may shock some of you. God's power is not enough. It requires your and my effort as well. How do I know that? James 4:7 says, "You resist the devil." Not let God resist the devil. You resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

How do you do that? Practically, how do you resist the devil when temptation comes? Let's go back to that equation and see how to counteract that equation. Remember, the first component is corrupt desires. If corrupt desires play a part in our sin, then we need to refuse to nurture our corrupt desires. Refuse to nurture, refuse to feed our corrupt desires. Now remember, most desires are legitimate desires that have gone wrong. God gave us a desire for sex. He gave us that desire for sex to strengthen our marriage relationship. God has given us a desire for money to take care of the basic needs of ourselves and our family that we're responsible for. God has given us a desire to work that comes from God to help us fulfill our God-given purpose. Many times our corrupt desires are genuine desires that we try to meet illegitimately, or they may be desires—needed desires in our life—that we take to excess. Whatever the case, we're like lion tamers having to constantly tame our temptations either to fulfill desires illegitimately or to fill them in excess.

How do you do that? Well, don't nurture those corrupt desires. Job said in Job 31:1, "I have made a covenant with my eyes. How then could I gaze at a young woman, a virgin?" He said, "I've just made myself a practice that if I see a pretty lady, I'll look once, but I'm not going to look twice. I'm not going to gaze at her. I'm not going to enter a fantasy of what it would be like to be with her sexually." I remember when I was a youth minister here, back when the dinosaurs roamed the earth. I remember one of our students made an appointment to see us, who was a guy leader in the youth group. He said, "Robert, I need some advice. I just am filled with lust. All I can think about are illicit thoughts." I said, "Well, is there a time when you find those desires increasing? A time you're prone to lust?" He said with a straight face, "Yes, when I'm looking at Playboy magazine." Remember Playboy magazine? Some of you act like you don't know what I'm talking about. Today it's Internet porn. But it's just so obvious. Why would you do that and not expect to have your corrupt desires enticed?

But you know, it's not just sexual desires that can run amok. So can material desires. You can feed your corrupt desires for material things. We used to call it window shopping. Nobody goes to the mall much anymore, but you can do it on your iPhone. You can scroll through and look at all kinds of clothes you wish you had, or boats, or houses, or different things. Some people feel their excessive desire for money. They feel that by constantly looking at the stock market and seeing if their investments are up and down and calculating how much money they have. Whatever desires Satan wants to incite in your life, refuse to play along by feeding those desires, whether they're sexual, material, or monetary.

By the way, it's not enough just to starve your corrupt desires. You have to feed your new desires. Remember Psalm 119:9, 11. David said, "How can a young man keep his life pure? By keeping it according to thy word. Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against God."

Secondly, recognize and run from Satan's bait. Remember, the temptation equation not only involves your corrupt desires, but it involves the right bait at the wrong time. We need to recognize and run from Satan's bait. Satan is the master fisherman. You know, people ask me sometimes, "Is Satan omniscient? Does he know everything? Can he read our minds?" No, he's not omniscient, and he can't read your minds. He doesn't have to. He's watched you long enough. He has studied you. He knows exactly what bait to dangle in front of you. And he knows when feeding time is. And that's why, if we're going to be successful in saying no to sin, we not only need to be students of Scripture, we need to be students of ourselves. We need to understand what it is that most likely tempts us. We need to understand when we're most vulnerable to Satan's temptations.

A rocky period in your marriage may increase your desire for intimacy, and Satan dangles right in front of you the possibility of an illicit relationship. Maybe a missed promotion stirs up a desire for recognition in your heart, and Satan dangles another job offer that is outside God's will for your life. Maybe an unforeseen emergency creates a need for more money, and Satan dangles in front of you an opportunity for an illegal business scheme in making money. The best thing to do when that bait is dropped—now listen to me—the best thing to do when that bait is dropped is not to admire it, to study it, to fantasize about it. The best thing you can do is to run from it. Run from it. That's what Joseph did. Remember in Genesis 39, the wife of his boss, Potiphar, kept making the moves on Joseph. She would continually entice him to have sex with her. One day, she had Joseph all to herself. Verse 12 says, "And Mrs. Potiphar caught him by his garment, saying, 'Lie with me.'" Now, that's the sanitized version. Literally, in Hebrew, it says, "Have sex with me." How did Joseph respond? Look at what Moses wrote. And Joseph said, "Mrs. Potiphar, I sense you have a deep need in your life. Can we pray about it together? Mrs. Potiphar, I sense there's something missing in your marriage. May I share with you five secrets for a scintillating marriage?" No. Joseph knew this situation was too much for his hot Hebrew hormones to handle on his own. And so he did the most spiritual thing he could do. He scrammed. The Bible says he left his garment in her hand and fled and went outside. She had grabbed him by his garment. He went so quickly in the opposite direction that she was left holding a piece of his garment. That's what 2 Timothy 2:22 says: "Flee, run from. Run as fast as you can from youthful lusts."

The third way to handle temptation is to remember the consequences of sin. That's what James is talking about in verse 16 when he says, "Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren." Instead of fantasizing and studying that bait that Satan has dropped in front of you, look at the hook that is going to destroy you. Sometimes when I am tempted, I think about the consequences if I fell into sin—what it would mean to this church, what it would mean to my family, what it would mean to the cause of Christ. It's helpful sometimes to imagine the consequences of your temptation if you were to say yes to that temptation. How would it affect your friends who have grown to respect you? How would it affect your mate who trusts you? What impact would it have on your children who admire you? What would it do to your grandchildren who adore you? How would saying yes to sin impact your Savior who died for you? Remember the consequences. Don't be deceived.

In his book "Three Steps Forward, Two Steps Back," Chuck Swindoll tells about an experience long ago he had while he was at a Bible conference in Canada. He had been there for eight days. He was missing his family. Feeling sorry for himself, he was stuck on a Saturday in a hotel with nothing to do. So he went downstairs to the newsstand and picked up a few newspapers, headed back to the elevator. He pushed the up button, and a couple of ladies approached him, and they pushed the up button. Chuck got in the elevator cab with the two women. He pressed the sixth-floor button, and he politely asked the women, "What floor would you like?" They said, "Six would be fine. Do you have any plans tonight?" And Chuck said he eventually thought about his family and his church. But the first thing that came to his mind, he said it was like God drew down window blinds over his eyes, and he saw a verse he had memorized decades earlier. It was Galatians 6:7: "Do not be deceived. God is not mocked. For whatever a man sows, this he shall also reap." Chuck writes, "During that elevator ride, the memorized word flew to my rescue. As I looked at the two women, I replied, 'I've got a full evening planned already. I'm really not interested.' I walked to my room, suddenly grateful for the overcoming power of God's word."

Listen to the Word of God. You've got the power of the Holy Spirit, the power of the one who raised Jesus from the dead. That same power is available to you to say no. But that power is only available to those who know Christ as their Savior. When Jesus saves us, he gives us not only a pardon from sin but a power over sin. Today, if you would like that forgiveness and that assurance of power for the future, I want to invite you, wherever you are, to pray this prayer in your heart, realizing that God is listening to you right now. Would you pray this with me?

"Dear God, thank you for loving me. I know I have failed you in many ways, and I'm truly sorry for the sins in my life. But I believe what I've heard today—that you love me so much you sent Jesus to die on the cross for my sins. Right now, I'm trusting in what Jesus did for me—not in my good works, but in what Jesus did for me to save me from my sins. Thank you for forgiving me, and help me to live the rest of my life for you. In Jesus' name, Amen."

My prayer is that men and women around the world, just like you, will hear this teaching from the Book of James and, as a result, will escape the awful consequences of sin. When you're tempted, God is standing with you, and he's ready to help you remain strong. Earlier, I described a book I've written that complements this teaching series on the Book of James. Walking with God means that you will encounter tests and trials. There's no getting around it. These hardships are designed to strengthen our resolve, and when we have victory over sin, the outcome is stamina and a dogged determination to stay the course. In my new book, "How to Know If You're Really Saved," I walk you through these life-changing tests of authentic faith. By reading my book, you'll discover not just how to handle temptation, but how to know with certainty that your salvation is real. A copy of my book is yours when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory. In addition, we prepared a collection of other resources to help you, including a group discussion guide for the Book of James. David will describe those resources in just a moment. Before our time is up, I want to reinforce my gratitude for your support of Pathway to Victory. When you stand alongside us, you're bringing the hope of the Gospel to the dark places of our world. In fact, there's not a day that passes when we don't hear from someone who tells us their heartwarming story of life change because of the teaching they hear on Pathway to Victory. So thanks for doing your part today. Here's David with all the details.

Speaker 1

When you support the ministry of Pathway to Victory by giving a generous gift, you're invited to request how to know if you're really saved. It's the brand new book by Dr. Robert Jeffress. To request your very own copy, call 866-999-2965 or go to ptv.org. When your gift is $75 or more, we'll also send you the complete collection of DVD, video, and MP3 format audio discs for this study in James, how to know if you're really saved. It comes with a personal and group study guide.

One more time, call 866-999-2965 or visit ptv.org. You could also send your donation and request by mail right to P.O. Box 223609, Dallas, Texas 75222. That's P.O. Box 223609, Dallas, TX 75222.

I'm David J. Mullins. We've all heard the expression actions speak louder than words, but when it comes to our faith, many Christians seem content to be professional listeners. Hear a message called "Mirror, mirror on the wall." That's Tuesday on Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress, coming from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas.

Experience the breathtaking majesty of America's last frontier on the 2026 Pathway to Victory Cruise to Alaska.

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Board Holland America's luxurious Koningsdam ship with Amy and me for a journey that will refresh your soul and renew your spirit.

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Experience the unforgettable adventure June 13 through 2020 26. To book your cabin, call 888-280-6747 or go to ptv.org.

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