The Healing Word

Announcer (Male): The Healing Word Ministry on One Place is brought to you by the generous donations of people like you. At any time during today's message, feel free to send a prayer request or make a donation using the links provided. Now, I pray you will be blessed as Pastor Jack Morris delivers a message from the word of God that will encourage and strengthen your faith in him.

Pastor Jack Morris: Praise the Lord for Jesus and for what he's done to fulfill all righteousness. He took my sin and he gave me his righteousness. He gave me his purity. He took mine and gave me his, and now because of him, I can have a relationship with God.

Announcer (Male): Welcome to The Healing Word, a radio ministry of the Largo Community Church. Here's Pastor Jack Morris with today's message that will grow your faith in God and lead you to a closer walk with Jesus.

Pastor Jack Morris: In this message today, I'm going to talk about the tempter, who is the devil, who is a real devil, who is out to devour God's people and to usurp the place of Jesus in our lives. Devil wants to sit on the throne of your heart. He wants your attention. If you and I don't have the word of God, he'll get it every time.

None of us are that strong in ourselves. But with Jesus and his word. Then we're going to look at the temptation of Jesus and as we look at the temptation of Jesus, exactly, listen, exactly how the devil tempted Jesus, that's how he tempts us. Exactly how Jesus overcame temptation, that's exactly how we're going to be able to overcome it. Friend, we have all this information. We don't have to be defeated. We can live in victory, great victory in the Lord.

Now, I've been—I started at Christmas time talking about the birth of Jesus. I've followed him in chronological order all the way up until today. I don't know how far we're going to go with this, but I'm preaching on the temptation of Jesus because that's where we are in his life, in his journey.

We heard about Jesus when he was 12 years old, then we don't hear about him again until he is 30 years old. 18 years of silence, 18 years in the carpenter shop. He was a man's man; he worked with his hands. Matter of fact, I've only known one woman carpenter in my life. All the carpenters I've known have been men. And so Jesus was a carpenter working in the carpenter shop providing for his mother and for his siblings. We don't hear anything more about Joseph after Jesus was 12 years old, so it's our assumption that Joseph died and Jesus now is the man of the house, the man of the family.

Well, after 18 years of silence, that last evening he hangs up his tools, he takes off his carpenter's apron. The next morning he begins his walk, some believe it was about 60 miles from Nazareth to the bank of Jordan to be baptized of John.

Now the reason Jesus was baptized is that he is now identifying with everyone who has lost their relationship with God or never had a relationship with God. He is coming to identify with us. Nobody asked him to go to Jordan. I didn't ask him to take my sins. When he was baptized, he went down into that watery grave, confessing our sins and repenting of our sins. He was perfect; he had no sins to repent of or to confess. But I certainly did, and so did you, and Jesus confessed my sins and repented of my sins.

To fulfill all righteousness—I talked about that just last week. To fulfill all righteousness meaning to bring me and you into a right relationship with God. We cannot be brought into a right relationship with God but through Jesus Christ. He's the way, the truth, and the life. There's no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. People say there's many ways to God. No, Jesus said there's one way, and I don't think he lied when he said that. I believe he came, he took our sins, he died in our place, he took our penalty. What a savior is he.

Can you say praise the Lord? Praise the Lord for Jesus and for what he's done to fulfill all righteousness. He took my sin and he gave me his righteousness. He gave me his purity. He took mine and gave me his, and now because of him, I can have a relationship with God.

And then after he came up out of the water, the strangest thing happened to him. The scripture says, "Then Jesus was led by the spirit into the desert to be tempted of the devil." Jesus was tempted of the devil. There must be a devil. You say you go through temptations, I go through—of course we do, but so did Jesus, to be tempted of the devil.

Now notice, chapter four of Matthew, chapter four, verse one, the very first word says the word is "then." Then he was tempted of the devil. Then. When? After he was baptized, after heaven was opened, after the voice of God, "This is my beloved son," after the dove coming as the Holy Spirit. What a spiritual experience he had. Friend, the devil can tempt you in church. The devil is there to hinder us, to destroy us. The devil is available to do that. That's his job. The job of Jesus is to empower us, to save us, and to give us victory.

Then Jesus meets Satan face-to-face in the wilderness. Jesus takes the sword of the spirit, and he wields that to the destroying of Satan's power to tempt. He comes out of that particular situation victorious. Now we're going to learn from Jesus how he did it and we're going to learn how to do it.

Now, no one was in the wilderness but Jesus and the devil. There was nobody there to see. Then how was this recorded? There was only Jesus and the devil in the desert. There's no other way but that Jesus had to come out of that desert and to tell his disciples what happened in that desert experience. Why did he tell them? So they could record it, so they could be strong, so that you and I would have it for 2,000 years, so now we can read it and be strong. Jesus wanted us to know what happened so we can do like he did and live in victory and overcome Satan.

Now let's look at this temptation. Verse one, two, and three, chapter four. Okay, there it is on the screen. Let's read it together: "Then Jesus was led by the spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. After fasting 40 days and 40 nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, 'If you are the son of God, tell these stones to become bread.'"

Now notice, the temptation came when Jesus was having a high, wonderful spiritual experience. When good things happen, sometimes we'll let down our guard. What better: a voice from heaven, the Holy Spirit like a dove. Everything was through his ears, through his eyes, through the sensation of his emotions. He was having a high spiritual experience. It was then the devil came. Friend, don't ever get to the place where you think you're so holy that the devil can't get to me. Sometimes when I think I'm the highest spiritually, that's when I'm more vulnerable than perhaps any other time.

So immediately he went into the wilderness. Mark says in chapter 14, "Keep watching and praying. Keep watching and praying." Don't ever let up. Keep on watching and praying. Keep watching and praying that you may not come into temptation.

Now Satan will tempt us. God will try us. There's a difference here. God never tempts a person to sin. God will never do that. Satan will tempt us to sin. But God will take that very temptation and test us, cause us to become strong, stretch our faith, develop us, and like Job, we'll come forth as pure gold. Satan wants to usurp God's place in your heart. He wants to control your life. He wants you to be his slave, yielding to every passion, every desire. He's going to dethrone God. That's what he's going to try to do. But God will take that temptation, turn it around and bless you, and when you come through it, you'll be a stronger Christian than ever before. Can you say Amen?

Now listen to what it says in James chapter one. "Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, that you may be perfect, complete, lacking nothing." Now God will turn it around. God will help you. Don't despise temptation. When it comes, naturally we're not looking for it, but when it comes, say, "Thank God it's here for a reason. It's here to make me stronger in the Lord and I'm going to come forth more blessed than ever before. I'm going to come forth as pure gold." Count it all joy.

So there's temptation. Here's the temptation of Jesus. Now I'm going to break it down into three major broad strokes that the devil tempted him. And remember this as I go through it with you: these are the same broad strokes that the devil comes at you, and how Jesus overcame, that's how we're going to overcome. So get in those small groups, get in those Bible studies, be here with your Bible on Sunday morning. Take that Bible off the mantle or out of the bookcase and read it at home. Let the word of God dwell in you richly. You'll be God's man, God's woman. You'll live in this world a victorious, healthy, happy, successful life. You can do it.

Announcer (Male): We'll be back with the conclusion of today's message in just a moment. Every day, The Healing Word reaches people with the life-changing truth of God's word, bringing hope to the hurting, peace to the anxious, and salvation to the lost. But we can't do it alone. If this ministry has blessed you, would you consider standing with us in prayer and financial support? Your faithful partnership helps us stay on the air, expand our outreach, and continue proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ to a world in need. Please take a moment today to pray for The Healing Word, for Pastor Jack Morris, and for all those listening, many of whom are facing incredible challenges. And if you're able, make a financial gift of any size. Every donation makes a difference. Visit thehealingword.com to give today. Together, let's share the healing hope of Christ with more people than ever before.

Pastor Jack Morris: Every need we have, God has provided a legitimate way for those needs to be satisfied and to be met. But sometimes we become impatient with God. We have these basic human needs, appetites, and God isn't working fast enough. Prayers aren't being answered fast enough. We become impatient with God. We become impatient with prayer. We take things in our own hands. We move in on a situation. We're not hurting anybody, we reason. We're only hurting ourselves, we're only hurting God, we're only hurting our family, hurting our friends. Friend, don't let human reason sit upon the throne of your heart. Don't let it do that.

That was the first temptation: the basic human needs of life. The second temptation is acting irresponsible. Do we have verses five and six for the screen? Ah, there it is. All right, let's read that one: "Then the devil took him to a holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 'If you are the son of God,' he said, 'throw yourself down, for it is written, he will command his angels concerning you and they will lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.'" You see, the devil knows the Bible. Would to God that Christians would know the Bible. The devil quoted it.

Now Satan takes that beautiful scripture that you and I just read and he twisted it. He twisted it. Friend, I'll tell you, I think you can almost take the Bible and get it to say almost anything you want it to say. Sometimes I'm beginning to think that. But God says that we must rightly divide the word of truth. We must know what he is talking about. Satan took that scripture and twisted it.

Now here's what happens. We will step out sometimes and start doing something, even buying a home, changing jobs, buying a car, whatever, without ever even praying about it. God, are you leading me? Are you truly Jesus, are you truly a shepherd? Am I truly a sheep and following you? God wants to be involved in every area of your life and bless you in every area of your life, give you victory and satisfaction in every area of your life. Friend, God's not against you; he's for you 110%. He's for you all the way. But we'll step out without praying and without checking God's word.

When things go wrong, then we'll say, "Oh Lord, get me out of here." Sometimes we say, "Well, I fell in love." That doesn't mean you have to marry him or her. I wonder if it truly is love or if it's something else, that human natural desire that God put there and we're calling it love when it's nothing more than a lustful feeling. And we build it up into something that it is not. We need to take everything to God in prayer and allow the Lord to help us in these matters.

When we were looking for property to move here where we are at 1701 Enterprise Road, we were down at the school. One of the finest Christian ladies in the congregation—she's not in the congregation, she's been out of here a long time ago. She's still alive and she's still one of the finest Christian ladies I know. But sometimes we'll listen to some of the finest Christian people and take their advice without praying about it. We say, "Well, I got it. I don't need to pray about it now. I got it from her or I got it from him." We won't say that, but we do that.

I walked across more properties. I prayed. We had the machinery come in, spent more money because there's no public sewage anywhere. We were in the wilderness. All these churches are trying to get into Mitchellville right now. When we came, we were in the jungle. I mean, there's nothing here when we came. I didn't know this was going to be such a rich community, a wealthy community. I was as naive as could be. I was just saying, "Lord, you tell me. You lead me."

Well, this dear soul, she came to me and she must have felt that I was starting to get discouraged. I don't think I was, but she said, "Well, pastor, why don't you just claim one piece of property and buy it and have faith that that's God's will?" That's human reasoning. Buy it and have faith and believe that that's God's will? No, I can't have faith until God speaks. And when God speaks through his word or through my conscience that is conforming to the word, then I can act.

You see, God all along didn't have it down on 202 for us or 214 for us, all of these pieces of property we were trying to get. And here is this dear soul, and I love her still to this day. Her husband was on the board. He's gone to heaven now. Never had a moment's difficulty with them. Not a cross word, nothing, nothing, nothing. I would have listened to this lady, but when she said that, I knew right away I can't do it. This isn't God. She's trying to help me, but she's not really helping me. She's trying to keep me from being discouraged and she's going to ruin me and this church if I listen to that. And yet she meant so much good.

And then all of a sudden, years went by. Some real estate person said, "You know over there on Enterprise Road, there's about 10 acres for sale." And I came up and I looked at it. Here's where we're supposed to be. This is the promised land that flows with milk and honey. We're going to cross over and claim it for Jesus, and we did. Now we have 55 acres. That dear sister has gone to another church, but she's come out to this one a couple of times and she's not angry that I didn't take any property down there. She's a good woman, a wonderful woman.

Now something very similar happened to Abraham, Abraham in the Bible. Abraham was told by God—oh, I want you to listen to this one—he was told by God that Sarah was going to have a son. He and Sarah were going to have a son, and that this son would be the blessing of God to the world. Through this son, there would come the nation of Israel, and through this son, Israel, ultimately Jesus, who is the redeemer of the world.

But you know what happened? Abraham got very, very old. He was a very old man, and Sarah was barren and they said, "You know, we have a promise, but nothing's happening." Now friends, that's where the crunch comes. We have a promise. You have prayed. But nothing is happening. So now you're going to take somebody's advice, you're going to take your own advice, you're going to move out on a situation. Then when you get in trouble, you're going to say, "Please, God, help me get me out of here." God says, "But you got yourself in there." But he won't leave you there; he'll come on and help you out. He's a good God; he's a heavenly father.

So Sarah said, "You take my maid, you have a son." Listen to the reasoning: "That son will be the seed of Abraham and become the heir of promise." Abraham said, "You want me to go have sex with your maid?" She said, "Yes, I believe it's God's will." Abraham said, "I believe it's God's will too. Sounds good to me." And they had a son. Hagar and Abraham had a son. They named him Ishmael.

Friends, listen to me tell you something. When you step out of the will of God, there's going to be suffering and there's going to be pain. Do you know that thousands of years have passed and we are still suffering because of what Abraham did? That was the very beginning of Islam. That was the very beginning. The Mohammedans claim Abraham as their father. They're right. The Jews claim Abraham as their father. They're right. Christians claim Abraham as their father. We're right. But we're still suffering because Abraham went ahead with human logic, had a son. Friend, what you sow, you're going to reap. God will help you get out of it, but there'll be scars on your memory maybe forever.

Okay, here's the third test. I've got to get out of it fast. Verses eight and nine. Do we have that to read? Oh, there it is again. Okay: "Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 'All this I will give you,' he said, 'if you will bow down and worship me.'" Now notice very quickly that Jesus didn't contradict Satan. Say, "Hey, you don't have that."

Announcer (Male): Thank you for joining us for The Healing Word. We hope this message has been a blessing to your life and has strengthened your walk with the Lord. To learn more about this ministry or to support our mission of spreading the gospel, please visit us online at thehealingword.com. Until next time, may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.