Books of James & Jude - Temptation in the Christian Life - part 2 - James 1:13-15
James 1:13-15 · JD McCulley · Feb 17, 2013
James & Jude, No. 07
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492634415841

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

So this morning is part two of Temptation in the Christian Life. We did part one last week and we looked at verses 13, 14, and 15 as the components to these two parts. And today, I'm going to pick up hopefully where Jeremy left off. I was able to listen through a little bit of that and look through the notes and kind of feel for where you were on it. And it sounded like you really had 13 pretty much nailed down in a major way and introduced a lot of the concepts that we'll cover maybe a little bit more in depth today. We'll look at verses 14 and 15 specifically today because I think that, and like you would have probably noticed, there's that process here that really sticks together in these two verses.

You really can't see one without the other because it brings to life that whole process of what's going on in this area of temptation. James, writing to a group of Christian Jewish audience, he's got a certain set of context in mind. These Jews were new believers. This is not something that we're dealing with in terms of a full-on Paulian understanding of identification. What's so neat about James is it gives those big, huge blocks of understanding about the Christian life.

And then Paul goes in and fills those things out with a clearer and much more robust understanding of identification. But what's here is the main process that's going on when these Christians would face temptation and how they would go about doing that. And what was the process? How does that stuff work? How does it look? How does it actually function in the life of the believer?

And we can even look at it from the perspective of the unbeliever as well, because it always results in the same thing for the unbeliever. But for us, we have an opportunity to actually grow and consider it joy, as opposed to actually being carried out to its inconclusion. which is death there in the end of verse 15. So let's just read this together and then we'll dive in. But each one of you is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin. And when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.

So these two verses really make up a pretty significant component to the book of James. I mean, we're talking about the major theme of trials and temptations. These two verses are really central to that understanding and give a lot of clarity about how that process takes place. We're going to go word by word through this and build an understanding of the verses and then we'll start making some conclusions about that process and we'll use some of the resources that Hal Malloy has put in place over the years to help better understand it and give some visual clarity to it.

First here, James says, each one of you, and what he means is that he's speaking to each and every person. In fact, the English Standard Version says, each person. So, he's not talking about anyone in particular, but he's talking about everyone in general. So, any one particular man, that being you, that being me. James is speaking each and every single person in the human race, and that involves us. So, he's getting very personal right now.

He's speaking not only to the Jewish Christians, But he means it in a larger sense that each one of you who takes the time to read this letter is in view here. And so he definitely had his main audience in that context of those Jewish believers. we should understand ourselves as being spoken to in this passage as well, because this applies to each one individually, as a part of the whole or totality of the human race, and more specifically, the Christian believers that were reading it. And it's always context that helps us understand these audiences and who James would be talking to. And so at first you would start with, obviously this is the Jewish Christians that he was speaking to, and then you go on and say, what is the content of what he's saying, and does that apply to a greater audience?

And if so, then you expand your understanding of what could be there. And each one in this way, in the Greek there, gives us that possibility of expanding it out once the context is clear. So we do that. Here's where it gets a little bit more interesting.

We find ourselves in one of the key words of the book, this tempted concept, and we've nailed it from a lot of different angles already. This particular word, in this case, again, translating this word could go one of two ways. And if you look back in previous verses, verses 3 and 4, this exact same word was translated trials. But in this particular verse, it's translated tempted. So instead of a trial, it's a tempt.

And what we have to do is, as Bible students, and being careful about how we translate these things, is just because we have options of how we might use them, we have to look at the context. Context is always the determining factor of how the word is used. And since this word can be used as a trial, and God can use a trial, and we talked about how God uses trials to give us an opportunity to grow and endure and produce patience, as we see in those previous verses in James. In this particular context, the deciding factor would be to use the idea of soliciting to sin, because there's a process here that goes from A, B, C, D, E, and so instead of God putting a trial in your life, in verse 13 we realize that this is not God who does this, and this is what Jeremy covered last week.

Do you want to read just verse 13 to give us some context, Al, if you don't mind? James 1, 13, just to help us remind ourselves what God is not in the business of doing. Let no one say when he is tempted, I am tempted by God. For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he himself tempt anyone.

That's right. So who is doing the tempting? Our accuser. Okay. We know that it's not God, right? And that was the point of Jeremy's lesson last week, is that God is not in the business of tempting. But is God in the business of using temptation? Although it does not have its source in him, does he use the process? He most certainly does. And we'll see that today.

But it's interesting here that God never, based on verse 13, and then now our context in view of verse 14, God never solicits a man to sin. So for us to ever, and just to review what was discussed last week, we as believers, and the Jewish believers that James was talking to, could never say to them, well God has tempted me to do these things. Would it be appropriate to say that the difference is whether you are led to respond in the flesh or in your new life, your identification in Christ?

Absolutely. It's which aspect of your life it is appealing to. That's right. Yeah, and I think it's going to become very, very clear the way solicitation works in these verses. I think when we're done here today, we should have a very, very clear view of this is how these temptations take root, grow, eventually give birth to what we see as death. We're going to understand that process, I think, in a very intimate way.

But one thing that we can say before we begin to understand it is this is not a process that's source is found in God. Now, does God use this process? He most certainly does use the process, but he is not the source of the process. So we need to find out who it is. In fact, this tempted word is in the passive voice. So we know that we're being acted upon by something, someone. The question is who?

Who is tempting us? And based on the fact that James mentioned that we can't say that God tempts. God most certainly doesn't do that. So, weren't the Jewish believers struggling with that reality? They were. I mean, that's why he wrote it. And we might be struggling with that reality too. Why is God doing this in my life? Well, James says, He does not solicit man to sin. He is not doing it to you. He is simply using what is being done to you. Question?

Well, I see that you're going to talk about spiritual anatomy, and I was just thinking with what Al said, how important that is to understand that spiritual anatomy, how to understand our identification, and the fact that we have died to the flesh, which is going to certainly come into play here and understand that God doesn't deal with us in the flesh. There's not the law where there's this interaction with the flesh, I guess you could say. God is dealing with us in our position in Him and understanding that and how that comes to play in trials and temptations is so essential. And not understanding that can lead to so much confusion when you're looking at all these different Especially this passage here.

Yeah, let's do that. Let's, to that point, let's take a minute here to recognize what we know about the physical and the spiritual realm of our own anatomy. And so, on this side we've got the body on the left, the physical realm, and the spirit on the right, spiritual realm, and the component that plays within both of those spaces is the mind and the emotions and the will. And we see that you've got the brain on the left and the soul on the right, and it is this soul-spirit side of our anatomy where God dwells. So this is where God is doing His work. Is God interested in reshaping and molding and creating an image of His Son in your body?

Well, not in the sense of this chart. So, he's not changing the way you look. He's not changing the places that you literally take your feet and walk. He is working in this realm of the spirit and the soul. And it affects our mind, it affects our emotions, it affects our will, but it's not this body part that God is interested in transforming, conforming, and eventually shaping into the image of Christ. He's interested in doing that on our spirit, because we know that Paul refers to the body as a tent, and that the tent is simply holding us back from being face to face with the Lord. So it's the spirit that God is at work in our lives. or in our anatomy, he's working in the spiritual side of things.

It's interesting, where is the location of the sin nature? It is attached to the body side of things. So it's a spiritual entity that's attached to this body side. When your body dies, does the sin nature die with it? No. But it's a physical, it's a spiritual component that is attached to the physical realm. And so, where does the unbeliever's sin nature, as a spiritual entity, find its eternal not resting place?

Right? In the lake of fire. So, we have this continuing person that exists in both places, that continues on, so we have our personality, so we have our unique traits that make us, us. And it's that unique fingerprint that God gave you, that's specific to you.

But it's interesting that the sin nature is tied to this physical realm, and it will have a physical location in eternity as well, even though it doesn't have a body associated with it. So, we have a very clear distinction between the physical and the spiritual now, but moving forward the sin nature will be the only thing, if you were to remain an unbeliever, that would go on living. and would find itself in the eternal place of punishment. An eternal place of separation, I think, is the best way to refer to it, based on your own choices.

So, what we need to do is we need to realize this. What, and the question was, remember in this previous one, something is acting on us passively. It's acting on our spirit and our soul in such a way that we are being spoken to and encouraged to do something. And we'll find out what those things are. But I'm going to propose that this is the sin nature working to tempt us. And this is possibly because who are we? Are we our sin nature anymore as a believer? Now James didn't go into this.

He's just making these statements in such a way that we have to go to Paul to understand further what's going on. And so I'm bringing to bear some of the things that Paul has taught us through identification. And Al and Jeremy both mentioned how important it is to understand this. But James was laying out this very clear process that takes place. Paul explained to us a further understanding of the source of the sin nature, and how we are not the sin nature any longer, and so it acts as a tempter. It is the passive accuser that's taking place, and who we really are, that is Christ in us.

Yeah, so we look at the, taking that into consideration, we just move on to this next part of the verse, so we see that each one, when he is tempted, he is carried away. Who's carrying him away? The sin nature. You see, the sin nature is at work in you to do the only thing that the sin nature knows how to do. And that is exactly what James is telling us. First of all, he tempts you. Then he carries you away. To draw you away, he leads you away.

There is a fishing and a hunting metaphor or analogy that James is using here. It's like a fly fisherman. And it's a delicate process, sort of like a hunter who's setting up a snare. But the Sin Nature, what it does is it throws out this fly into this nice little spot in the river.

And you see this very tempting lure. And all of a sudden, you come out from underneath your rock, you kind of get out of your hiding place, and you get out in the open. And that's what's being spoken of by James here when he says, carry it away. Also, the idea of entice is to bait and to entrap. And so, he not only carries you out into the middle of the river where you can actually be seen and be caught and take part in this process, he then entraps you, he baits you, entices you. That little lure just starts to sparkle.

It starts to do all the right things that would cause you to leave the place of rest in the Christian life that you had. And he lures you out, and he entices you, and this whole process is interesting. I noted at the bottom there, it's like a person's sin nature both builds and baits his own trap. That's what you have going on. in your mind, as far as the sin nature is concerned.

This is all he's interested in doing, is tempting you by carrying you away, enticing you with something, and each fish, each believer is going to respond to a different type of lure. It's going to respond to a different type of bait. And you know your bait, right? I know mine.

But we've got a lot of them, and what's interesting is that James uses this word lust, and I think at first reading you may think that this is more of a sexual kind of thing, but the word is much more broad in that, and it covers this idea of desire or a passionate longing. What do you passionately desire? What do you long for? It may be sexual in nature, it may not be. There's probably a thousand different things that we could list if we took the time to do that.

Thoughts? It's just interesting how God works. This afternoon when I do chapel, I'm reading from 1 John. Love not the world or the things that are in the world, but the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes. And I bet it's the same word. And my intent is to talk to those guys in jail and say, you're going to think of sex first, but it means anything. that you've just got to have to make your flesh happy. That's right. Anything to encourage that part of you which would draw you away from God.

And we're going to talk about love since this was Valentine's week. So I'm going to work on the difference in God's love and the world's concept of love. But it's just interesting that Here we are. You want to come out with me? We'll tag team. Let's keep digging in because I think that verse that you mentioned there, Al, is so appropriate because it does. It uses the same term there. It's a craving.

What do you crave? What does your sin nature crave? Smokehouse almonds. What's that? Smokehouse almonds. Anything that I've got to have to make me feel good and to satisfy whatever sense, whether it's taste or touch or so on. That's right. It can appeal to any of the senses. That's where we're going. And it usually does. It usually appeals to the senses that you most struggle with.

And what's interesting here is that this is not meant to catch you. This is not meant as a process, as we're going to see, to put you in a situation where you find yourself on the end of the hook, hung and eventually, you know, dead. This process, you see, God uses those things that we do to ourselves as an opportunity And we're going to look at that. So, there's a really interesting way of looking at this, and it's not a negative way, although there is a completely negative perspective on it, because there is the end case and result of death that we're going to see. We're going to talk about that. But there's also another end result that can take place as well.

And I want to look at both of those, but this concept of lust is really seen in the scripture as two ways. This idea of desire and craving. Is it wrong to desire God? to crave the Lord, His life, His word. My heart longs for you like the tree that pants for the water.

Philippians 1.23, Paul describes his desire, deep desire, we talked about that last class in 1 John, I'm sorry, Philippians, about how Paul longed, he desired, he lusted to be with God. Even so that he was torn between the present and his future face-to-face experience with the Lord. So there's the good sense of longing and craving. And then there's the bad sense, which is the most common usage in the New Testament, which has to do with this evil desire, this evil craving, this evil driven.

And where is evil centered in our life? What is one of the, and you covered the enemies, the world, the flesh, and the devil. In specific, which one is this talking about? Definitely the flesh. Can the devil, can the world appeal to our flesh? According to this, who does the tempting? Who does the enticing? Who does the drawing away? It's the flesh that actually activates those things.

So while the world and the devil may present to you something that you could lust after, it is actually your flesh that goes through the process of pulling yourself out into the open and being enticed by it. Your flesh allows you to be enticed by it.

Now, sometimes that temptation might come from the world of the devil, but more often than not, I propose that it comes from within ourselves. You know, a lot of times we're like, ah, the devil tempted, no, he's got better things to do than to worry about you.

He's put this sin nature in place so that it works within you, and he doesn't have any, you know, presence physically in your life right now at all. It's just the sin nature that he gave birth to many, many years ago. You hear some people say, well God made me the way I am, I can't help it, I'm just human. Okay, that's a really good point. What they're speaking to is my sin nature responds to these things and I don't want to do anything but listen to my sin nature. Flip Wilson, the devil made me do it. I love that. He didn't know how prophetic he was. I do think that is so important.

Because you look at something like, particularly in our modern day culture, all this discussion in our country over homosexuality and, well, it's inbred and we're born that way. Even if it is true, even if science can find the so-called gay gene, I think for Christians...

Can it find it? I mean, if our sin nature is attached to the physical realm, could it find evidences of attractions to the things that God say are wrong? Absolutely. Yeah. You can trace a synapse that's responding to a certain desire in a physical realm, and you can scientifically say, these people, it's like they were born to do it. Well, they were born with a sin nature, and their sin nature is lust after that particular thing. The sin nature is real. And your point is taken. It's very... It can have a very scientific spin because... Scientific spin, not scientific. Because the sin nature lives in the physical realm. Right, and that's exactly what I was saying.

From the biblical perspective, that doesn't matter. It's still, what does God... We have all these things. that are not what... We have all these desires that are not what God... They're not desiring God. They're in contrast to that. So whatever... I mean, we can spend a lot of time dissecting it and going through it. And there are, you know, Christians that do spend so much time trying to get down to the root of all this.

The fact is, it's desires that God has said, I don't want you... Those are not the things you're supposed to desire. Those are going to take you away from who you are in me. To me, that's the key. And it's interesting, because the world draws... They'll say, well, you're born an alcoholic, but you need to do everything you can.

Well, clearly there's a difference between alcoholism and homosexuality, but from the spiritual, biblical standpoint, the point is, that's not what God... those are leading you away from God. And you have to rest in Him if you're going to have any defeat over those things. The key here, and I see you're going to get to that, is what is failure for the Christian? What does it mean to fail? And what is the position, the condition that we're supposed to live in, which is of course resting in our position in Christ?

And to dissect and to get specific about all these things, I think is... I don't know if I'm explaining myself. No, I think you have some thoughts. To go just a trifle deeper, but with that same thing. When sin occurred and separated us from God, and we then had this sin nature that affected the physical world as well as the spiritual battles going on, it twisted everything. And who's to say but what the DNA defects, quote unquote, that people are searching for and saying, oh, if your family has a history of alcoholism, then you're going to be an alcoholic and you just have to work hard and try to resist. Sin has corrupted everything. including the natural desires as Romans 1 chapter 18 Paul talks about having taken those things which God intended for a good and beautiful purpose and twisted them around. And who's to say about all these things that science is so proud of finding are really just part of the expression of the corruption that sin has brought into the world. Period. It is.

I mean, science is searching for and after death. I mean, death is such a huge component. We're trying to prevent death. We're trying to understand how death gives rise to mutations that are advantageous to our future. So death is a real central component of the scientific method and understanding how and why we're here. All those big philosophical questions are are really wrapped up into why this death and how death works in order to give rise to better as they propose that it is. But death is a consequence of sin. There was no death, there was no scientific process that could identify and understand death before sin, because it didn't exist.

But to go a step further with what you're saying there is, when a person says, I can't help this, this is who I am, I would say, I'm sure that you're right. Because your identity right now and the comment that you just made, and we feel this way, so let's be honest with ourselves, we feel this way.

I did that, but it's just kind of who I am. I mean, this is just what I... It's just me, you know? And you revel on that for a little bit, and then you kind of settle in that for a little bit, and then you kind of like get a little proud because, hey, it's just me. You know, and you end up being proud of who you are at some point. When sin takes its root, you take pride in your own little expressions of sin, you know? You're like, this is me.

And I'm going to do it with style. But when a person says, hey, it's just me. This is what I do. I can't change who I am. Well, that's the issue. That's the whole point of the Gospel. The truth of the Gospel, when it is accepted by faith, changes your identity. When we say identification truths, we're talking about your ID card.

You were the sin nature, and always the sin nature. You could only behaviorally control it in such a way that outward expressions of it seemed lesser and lesser as you controlled it by law, whatever law you choose to follow. That was your identification. Some got really exorbitant with their expressions of sin, some retained less sin and didn't permit themselves to get so involved in whatever it was. Those are all expressions of the sin nature to varying degrees.

But when you came to know the Lord, through the death, burial, and resurrection of his son by faith, your identification, your ID card changed. The problem for us as believers now is not reckoning on the reality of that identification change. And so when a person says, that's just who I am. Exactly. That's who you are. If you're an unbeliever, that is who you are. And you need a new identity. If you're a believer and you say, that's just who I am, you don't understand who you are. That's the problem. So all of this goes back to identity.

You've been given a new identity in Christ. You have a new representative. He's taken you into the courtroom of heaven and justified you once and for all. He has stood in your place. He is your life. From that point forward, from the moment you believed in faith and salvation, you are now in a place of growing in the truth and reckoning on it.

We're going to talk about that process. So when somebody tells me this is just who I am, if they're a believer, I say, well, it's not who you are, and that's the problem. You may want to do that, and I'm not saying that you don't want to do it. You may want to do it really a lot. But what's wanting to do that is your sin nature doing this very process.

Carrying you away, enticing you, and tempting you with the very things that you crave the most. For the purposes of separation. Death. That's what we're going to find out. So this lust, in a good sense, it desires to be with Christ. In a bad sense, which James uses it here, it's an evil desire. And it wants to pull you out and lure you in to a place where the sin nature is fed and gets exactly what it wants.

Furthermore, with the concept of lust or desire, in James 1.14, it is used in that bad sense. And the source of our desires, the bad desires, are from the sin nature of the flesh.

Pat, can you read Galatians 5.17 real quick? And I think understanding the source of temptation is paramount. And that's really what James is trying to get at here.

He is not in the business, in his role as an apostle, of telling us our new identity in Christ. That was not what the Lord gave him to do. He was given this role of explaining how the trials come about, what our divine viewpoint should be about those trials, and how they take place. And he does prescribe the end result in our focus, but he doesn't give us all the clarity that Paul is about some of those things.

Galatians 5.17. 5.17?

Yes, I'm sorry. For the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. These are contrary to one another. So that you do not do the things that you wish. It's interesting. So that you don't do the things that you wish. So we've got this contradiction of two entities lusting for different things or craving different things. Again, the good sense of craving and the bad sense of craving. Or the good sense of desire and the bad sense of desire. And the good sense of desire comes from the spirit. But the flesh contradicts that craving and gives you an alternate craving so that you don't do what you want to do. Now who is you in Galatians? Is that you in the sin nature or you as a child of God? So that you don't do what you want to do?

He's talking about obedience. So he's talking about you as an abiding believer. That's your identity, according to Paul. It's really interesting. He's not talking about you and the flesh. He's saying, the flesh wants to do this, but you want to do this. And they're in contradiction.

So Paul understood the you as Christ in you, not you in the flesh any longer. And not you in the flesh where it's made a little better, or it looks a little better. That's not how Paul understood you. He understood you as being in complete contrary perspective to the flesh itself.

It's so sad how few Christian churches move you from Romans 7 to Romans 8. I have never heard such clear expositions as in the last several months that I've been here. And I've been a churchgoer all my life. And I've never heard anything that moved me out of Romans 7. From the constant conflict between what I wanted to do and what my flesh did do. That being set free. How sad that is. It is very sad. That you can be a Christian for 60 years and never move past the entrance exam. I think we, while 60 years might not be the same time for each of us, I think we all have...

Well, it's part of the process because you are used to depending on your flesh to accomplish things. And so you think, well, I can exert my willpower. Fruit of the Spirit, one of them is self-control. Well, I can self-control. I'll have self in charge of self. Boy, that really works out. That's right.

I was thinking and talking to Leslie on the way here this morning that the way that I went about this for so many years was I knew that the Word of God was critical. And I knew that having faith in the Word of God was critical. And so, when I had whatever temptation appealed to my flesh, it was a quick, okay, what does the Word of God say about this? And it was like a, claim it, name it. And I put all my faith in the Word of God, being more right than the way I was feeling.

Now, is that biblical? I think it is biblical, but what I didn't understand until the last several years was that the Word of God is alive. It's not a set of words in a book that can be used as an incantation or some kind of thing that I just throw at it. Well, you're using it like the law. That's right. And it's interesting, and I mentioned this last, it's not the sword of the flesh.

It only works when it's utilized by your new identity, who you are in Christ. And what's interesting is it's always personal because the word is Christ. And so, I may have made connections there, but I didn't understand that my walking was not only about knowing what the scripture says and using it against my situation, but there was a whole personal process of Christ doing the empowering, the enabling, the energizing. And all of a sudden it was Christ that did it. It wasn't my flesh getting more obedient because I used the Word of God. But I thought that's the way it was for so long. Your flesh is never going to use the Word of God as a sword. It doesn't use the Word of God.

It uses your own mental capacity in the flesh. Thoughts? One of the things I mentioned last week was how The human determination can accomplish an amazing amount of stuff. I mean, just look through human history and what they've set their mind to do it and they've done it. And isn't that one of the things in which we're taken away is the flesh says, you know what? You can handle this on your own. You can defeat this desire on your own. You can do it. And then we get that spiritual power. Look what I've overcome. I've been able to defeat this and that sin.

But still, this goes back to kind of what I said earlier, what is the baseline, if you will, for the believer? Where are we supposed to be? What does God intend for us to be? And what is failure as far as this temptation is concerned? It's resting in Christ, and when we fail to rest in Christ, if it's even, well I can accomplish this on my own, when you're not resting in Christ, in that sense you've been taken away. And so, it's just another aspect in which the flesh entices you away from your resting in Christ to say, well, if you do all this stuff, look at what you're able to accomplish. You're able to live the good Christian life, right? Like Vern talks about all the time, don't try to be a good Christian. Well, how many Christians are trying to be a good Christian? And then that's Most of Christianity. That's where we were, right? We've all been there. We had to be there.

The flesh can use the Word of God. The devil did it. You can use the Word of God. You can know what it says. You can know how to use it. You can even apply it properly in the context of your own evil desires. You can do that. And you can trust that the Word of God is going to somehow make the thing go away. But the thing is, is that the scripture doesn't stop there. It doesn't stop there. I'm just saying that you can be ultra-sin-nature-flesh about it, or you can have a very polished Christian flesh approach to it. And I know that. I know that really well. I know it way better than I wish I did. Let's look at this.

The ultimate source of temptations is our sin nature. There are many external influences that solicit us and draw us out to sin. It is not the external thing itself that tempts us, it is our reaction to it. I think that's critical here. External things do not become personal temptations unless the sin nature desires to pursue them. So if you say to a believer that's struggling with, let's say, alcoholism, don't go to the bar anymore. remove the external temptation, and you'll find success here. Now, could that be a help? It could.

But the problem is, is that you're presupposing that the temptation is bound in the location, in the availability of that external thing. When really, the source is your flesh. And that's the issue. Whether you're in a bar, or you're sitting in the middle of a forest, without a single drop of alcohol next to you, Your flesh still wants what your flesh wants. And it may not be able to get it, physically speaking, but it doesn't mean that you don't lust and desire and crave the same things, because the source hasn't been dealt with.

And when we go through this idea of counseling and helping people, and when I go through the process of being counseled through the Word of God, through beholding Christ through His Word, I have to recognize that these external things are not my problem. My flesh is the problem.

And the Lord takes us through a very, in some cases, long period of time in understanding our flesh, that old man. Not the old man, but the sin nature rather. Understanding that sin nature so that we know when it's working. So that we can recognize how it speaks, and how it functions, and how it entices, and how it draws us out in the middle of the river, and how it baits our own mind for the very thing that it wants. It takes time to understand that about yourself.

And when we see other believers in that process and they're baiting their own sin nature and giving their own sin nature the very thing that it wants and enticing themselves, we have to realize that we were there once too and it's an identity issue and time and need that draws a person to the need of Christ himself to do the living. I think the comfort in this is one of the things I mentioned last week.

In 1 Corinthians, there is no temptation taking you, but such as is come. But God is faithful and will not allow you to be tempted above that you are able. So we can know that whatever stage we're in in our Christian life, that the temptations and trials are going to be based on what God has given us to understand at that moment.

So it's not like, okay, you're here in your spiritual walk and there's this other deep spiritual truth. God's not going to test you on that. I mean, last week we talked about, you know, if you're in a freshman science class, they're not going to talk to you about, you know, atomic structure and nuclear physics and quarks and all that. It's going to be the basic stuff where you are then.

And God... So there's comfort in that, knowing that we're being tested, we're being tempted based on what God has revealed to us at that point in our Christian walk. And so there is certainly victory in the sense that we can continue to rest in Christ. But in a way, there's comfort to know that God certainly knows where we're at. And with all these trials and testings, that it's a way that we can strengthen I think you've already mentioned the strength in our understanding and our faith at where we are at that particular point in our lives.

These trials and temptations that are not sourced in God but used by God are personal to you. We think of them as not being personal or being what we actually need. It's interesting because if our sin nature is doing all of the enticing and tempting and drawing us out in this process that James is saying, then you're the one, at the pace that you are in your own life, that is leading yourself into that need. In other words, you have given yourself this very trial, and God is now using it to teach you where you are. about what you need and who you are. So it's very personal and it's very unique to each believer.

It doesn't mean that there's not an external situation where, you know, you can't control it. There are external situations. But it's your sin nature that handles that situation. And that's where the temptation is. There's no temptation outside of your sin nature. It's sourced in that sin nature.

This idea of teaching is something I wondered about when the scripture says God tested the Israelites, when he told them not to work on the Sabbath, on the seventh day, he said he was going to test them. And that seemed like, apparently it's different than tempting them, because God didn't tempt them, but he tested them.

So is that, it's, yeah. And the people shall go out and gather a certain quota every day that I may test them whether they will walk in my law or not." So that sounds kind of like what you're saying. He's going to teach them. And some apparently they did gather and the man had molded and spoiled. But he didn't tempt them. He tested them. I have to look at that specific use and just make sure that the principles are the same there. I will say that the context of being tested under the law, the law's purpose was to lead a man to the Lord.

It was never allowed, sorry, it was never able to save them. So, the law itself and the obedience to the law never saved a man. In fact, we talk about regularly that someone can be disobedient to the law and still saved, stoned, for picking up firewood on the Sabbath. You know, Vernon uses that example a lot.

So, attesting under the law is not producing the same result as God allowing a trial for a believer to grow in the image of Christ. It's the production and the purposes are different in that way. So I'd have to take a look further at that use of testing in that instance. But in the context of the law, one being tested by obeying or not obeying is not in any way, shape or form the same as one who has Christ already and is saved and is being conformed to the image of the Son.

So whether or not they passed or failed the test, they could still be saved and they could potentially have results that we're not privy to, and they most certainly did. I mean, they came in and out of control by other countries based on this law, but the law's purpose was never to conform them to the image of Christ, it was to lead them to the source.

It was like a mirror that showed the man's need for God. And so, if anything, it tested for them to further recognize their sin. But it didn't have a prescription on how to walk through that test. There was only obedience to the law outside of a life of Christ. So, they could walk by faith in what they knew of God, and they did. But the testing of the law never could produce the same thing that these tests and these trials that God permits. It does not source. So, there's a nuance there. I don't think it's a direct correlation. Any further thoughts about that?

Well, ultimately it comes down to faith. Yeah. And the testing, and you said it, it's... Even under the law, it's, are you going to believe that what God has said is best for you? Are you going to believe that He gave you the law, you need to trust Him by following the law. And for us it's a little different, but ultimately, it seems to me, all testing comes down to, it's a test of our faith. And what we believe to be true about God, as far as what He has set us, and set out for us to do.

So much of the law was designed additionally to set Israel apart, to show what God was like. It was corporately important. for Israel to be tested as a corporate entity. And in this case, we're getting very personal, and we're now on the other side of the death, burial, and resurrection, and now the identity of Christ. So I'm just saying that there's so much more that could be looked at. You bring up a very deep subject, especially in the Old Testament. But let me think about that some more. I think it's interesting what you're saying.

So let's take a look at the temptation process as we understand James. Now I'll remind you, James came out of that Jewish mindset of having been tested in Israel. His forefathers had gone through that process of repentance and disobedience, repentance and disobedience, and they'd failed the test and been taken captive by Babylon. He has this history and yet he's explaining these things in a very personal way in this case.

Here we start with the and how was the source of these charts and so thankful for that Excited to continue to better understand and think about these this has been helpful for me This process we see in verses 14 and 15. You start out as a believer, you're abiding in Christ. Your lusts or your cravings, your desires is sourced in the sin nature. It draws you away out from that hiding place under the rock as a fish, as an example. And then the sin nature not only draws you out, but lures you. So it does the drawing out and the luring. And that's the process that we see so far. Now the question I would have is, are we guilty of sin at this point? Can you be a fish that's been drawn out, out in the middle of the river, laid the bait, set it out in front of you, and is James seeing this as sin yet?

Then, in verse 15, then, progression, then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death. So when it has conceived, when lust has conceived, so literally to become pregnant, is there any going back? I mean, without getting into like... In the mind of James, once it's been conceived, at this particular point, once lust has conceived and you've been impregnated, with this sinful craving. It's at that point where the process moves from temptation to sin. So now you're not in a place of abiding any longer.

You're in a place where there's a different set of God's Word that you need to reckon on, and that is 1 John, the confession sign of things. Because now you've given birth, or you've conceived and, as we'll see, it gives birth to this. So now you've got this sinful child that the sin nature has conceived inside your physical being and it gives birth.

This idea of pregnancy and childbirth, it's a very graphic thing, but it's very appropriate. James uses it. There's a lot that the Jewish mind could tack on to this birth. Abraham going through this process of needing to conceive a child. Even Mary, this idea of conceiving and having a child.

So the metaphor has its background, but Here, the sin, like a child at birth, has long been alive, but is now made manifest. James Macaulay says it this way, all sin incubates in the mind before it becomes overt. The sequence is conception, which takes place in the mind, then the birth of sin, and finally death. And that's what's going on in this second part of the verse. So, here it is drawn out a little bit further.

You're abiding in Christ, your lusts, sourced in the sin nature, pull you out into the middle, you're drawn away, you're enticed, you lure yourself with your own lusts, and all of a sudden, you take the bait. You make the mental plunge that you're not just entertaining the idea, but you've now taken the mental plunge, and you've accepted, much like what Hal is saying, you've now traded the truth for a lie. You've lied to yourself and now you're believing it. You've started lying to yourself. You've pulled yourself out a little bit further with it. You've convinced yourself to keep getting a little bit further out and then you just hook yourself with the lie. And all of a sudden now you're believing a lie. You've taken the bait.

James says you become pregnant with that lust or that desire and it conceives itself in your sin nature and it gives birth to the sin. It seems like this gestation period is almost instantaneous. Once it's conceived, then, I don't know, it's almost like immediately it gives forth birth. So there's not like this long period where, okay, sin is... No, it's almost right that moment.

It's interesting, about the timing, it says when it is accomplished, it means it gets accomplished right after it's conceived. When it is accomplished, it does these things, so it means that it's run its course. And once it's run its course in your mind, we're not talking about a long period of time, we're saying, once it's run its course, you've made the mental plunge to this, it brings forth or begets that death. So when sin has run its full course, when it's fully grown, it brings forth death.

And I think that's a really important point, is that we're not talking about nine months or the growth of a tree. We're talking about a process that is instantaneous. Now, can it get worse and worse and worse over time? But all that will do is produce more and more death.

So we're talking about death as separation here, not the loss of salvation. Some have seen this as a loss of salvation, and that's not what it's being. We know that there is death in the life of the believer. There is separation in the life of the believer. There is a loss of fellowship with Christ. And John uses that loss of fellowship to speak of it as separation or death.

Death always needs to be understood in context. It can't be understood as a one way of looking at death all throughout scripture. Separation, yeah. Interestingly, you brought up the, there's no temptation taking you, but such as common demand and so on, 1 Corinthians 10, 13. The context of that, Paul is writing to remind them of what their fathers went through in the wilderness and how God delivered them and watched over them. But they grumbled about, you brought us out here to kill us. We'd rather be back in Egypt. There's no water. We're tired of this worthless bread. That's the phraseology right here.

I'm looking at the first part and it's interesting because it says, now these things became our examples to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted. Very interesting. There's that lust again. In their case it was the garlics and leeks of Egypt. They were slaves but they were secure slaves. Now they're going out in the wilderness by faith and they're saying, I don't like this. faith's journey, and how very similar we can be in our attempts to justify our complaints and our reactions to the testings that we get.

Yeah, most definitely. I'm sure that... I can imagine that James would have had questions surrounding some of those things. You know what? We've grumbled a lot, James. We've been in that situation a long, long time. He said, yep, yep, you know what I'm talking about then. Let me give you some clarity on how it exists in a personal way now.

Not in the corporate sense of the nation of Israel, but now here's how you do it to yourself. Let's look at the final result here. You start abiding, you end up in not abiding, and you lose your fellowship. So, Hal took the this chart a little bit further and shows that above this dotted line you've got temptation and not sin.

This is a process that is very, very common and will continue to be for the rest of your life on this earth. This is a process that should, as we reckon on the truth of who we are in Christ, should occur less and less on our time on this earth. But this will continue. The sin nature is not in the business of getting quieter or not doing what it's an expert at doing. And there's that fishing analogy or that hunting analogy where it draws us out, it uses the very lusts that we have, the cravings, the desires that we want. That's not going to stop at 85 years old. Thanks a lot. It's not. I know exactly what you're saying.

But as we grow, not in a human age, but as we grow in our identity in Christ, this process, It can be experienced much less. It's humorous when you're young and you look at an older person and you think, man, they got it made. They don't have to go to work. They don't have to worry about raising the family. They can just sit back in their rocker and enjoy the beautiful sunset. Life is easy.

No, no. As long as you're in this human flesh, that sin nature is going to give you trouble in some area, whatever it may be. And Satan knows how to wiggle that hook the right way to appeal to that nature. You're exactly right. He further recognizes that this state above the line is a place of reckoning. You can reckon on Christ at any particular point in this temptation process. Once you've taken the bait though, and sin has conceived itself, then you're not in a place of reckoning. You can't reckon any longer. You're in a place of confession at that point.

So here I'm just bringing out a divine viewpoint of temptation versus a human viewpoint of temptation. That's a term that I use regularly. We've got our human way of thinking about it, and then we've got the Lord's view on how to deal with it. Our response to temptations is to rest in the truth, Romans 6, 11, and 12.

Even so, consider yourself to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. That's where our life is. Sin nature is not alive, but it is still yelling out directions and going through the process of fishing you out of your hiding place in Christ, your resting place, maybe I should say it.

It's very much interesting you not having rest. It's the anti-rest agent at work in your body, in your mind. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts. How do you let it reign? You take the bait. Over and over and it becomes the reigning factor. Now your sin nature is running the show.

Galatians 5.24, now, those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. So, when we reckon that what process we are very real in experiencing, the realities that we are experiencing, this drawing out, this enticing, this temptation, this lust, that's a very real process. And Paul in Galatians is saying, you have to realize that the source is dead that's doing that. It is crucified.

It is a deposed monarch. It is yelling out to you the commands that it has no authority has no authority to bring about in your life any longer. There's no place for it. But it doesn't mean it stops talking. It continues to do the same screaming out, yelling, get down and give me 20. You know, you know you want this. It won't stop saying that, however you hear it. It won't stop.

But it's deposed. It's dead. It's been crucified. It is no longer authoritative in your life. and it's crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. In other words... Yeah, you got it. Two minutes. I'll have time, it's after. Yeah, both bills have already run. That is wrong. I was wondering... I am so sorry.

Colossians 3.5. Therefore consider the members of your... This is a good one. Consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. This is where we reckon. And there's a lot of other verses too. But this is how we find ourselves. So there's a couple final slides there.

What should our response be to temptation? Consider it joy. Why? Because this is a process that you grow in. It's not something to be frowned upon or frustrated about. James himself says, consider it joy when you encounter this trial. When you're pulled out there, consider it joy because that's an opportunity for you to reckon on who Christ is.

So, I'll let you read those final slides. Thanks for letting me go over. I had no idea. I thought I had three minutes left or two. So, we'll end it on the clock. That's what I want to do. I'm not going to blame somebody right now. Okay, I'm not going to do it. I'm just kidding.

Let's just pray real quick. Father, we thank you so much for the truth of your word in James and that we have prescribed this truth about the death of the flesh and the role that it does not have in our lives and how we can reckon on your truth and understand this process of temptation. And we thank you that because of our life in Christ, we have the enablement, the energizing, the empowerment to be your vessels as you use us to do the things that you desire in us. And we just thank you for that privilege that we have in Christ. It's in His name we pray. Amen.