Today how to guard against the temptations of the world . I wish you could somehow condense temptation into an object , dissect it and understand it , because , man , it's such a reality . I mean , when you think about the element of temptation . To me , elephant of temptation , good way to put it right , it's a big element of temptation , elephant of temptation , good way to put it right , it's a big boy , a big , fat elephant of temptation Wants to sit on you .
Speaker 1To me it's as real as the law of gravity . It's just such a reality and as Christians , it is the constant element that we are battling against and fighting against . But we're all in this together and my hope from today's episode is really to dispense encouragement , to remind believers that you're not alone and that we battle this together
. So temptations , oscar , I don't know , say something .
Speaker 4I love the way you put it . I think I was just talking to somebody at the conference that I was at and he came to me and he , with tears in his eyes , confessed sin that he's been struggling with . And he was like I'm so afraid to tell anybody about this and I don't know what to do . And I , he was like what can I do to stop overcome this sin that I've been struggling with since I was 13 , 14 years old . And I told him , man , I said Satan wants you alone in this . He does not want you to share this with your friends . He doesn't want your pastor to know .
Speaker 4The Lord tells you that if you confess your sins , you will be forgiven . That's not that he's holding back grace , but he's holding back a healing bomb , or I should say you are holding back a healing bomb from yourself to invite others in . And so you make a great point , which is to just simply recognize to be a Christian is to be tempted by sin . Those two things go hand in hand . Jesus himself was tempted and , of course , did not sin . I love John Owen saying which is temptation ? Is anything that lures us from obedience . The devil wants you to not participate in obedience . You are not alone in that . And to your point , man , we fight temptation together .
Speaker 1Yeah , Amen , yeah . Ray Oscar mentioned Christ in the wilderness and the temptations he faced from Satan . What was the key to him overcoming Satan's temptations ? Ray in the wilderness , the .
Iron Dome . Yes , israel's got an Iron Dome and I'm fascinated by this very sophisticated radar system that detects and neutralizes incoming missiles . And for the Christian , the dome , the Iron Dome is the fear of the Lord . When Potiphar's wife started Sending missiles towards Joseph , it was the fear of the Lord that caused him to run . And that's what we need . An Martin said you can only get in the realm of deliberate sin when you get out of the realm of the fear of God .
Speaker 2I'm going to repeat that because it's so good , you can only get into the realm of deliberate sin when you get out of the realm of the fear of God . Jesus said watch lest you enter into temptation . He said that to his disciples and then he said this . He said watch lest you enter into temptation . The spirit , indeed , is willing , but the flesh is weak , and that's the key to understand your flesh . It's weak .
Speaker 2So you need the iron dome , you need to cultivate the fear of the Lord , and I liken it to when you're reading , innocently reading , some article , and there's a pop that comes in and you've got a little X in the corner that's the size of a microchip and you've got to touch it with your finger . And if you don't , you're into this site , an area you don't want to go to . It just takes you straight to it , and that's what the wiles of the devil is like . You just innocently go , phew , in your mind Some filthy thought and you've got a tiny X that you've got to touch . There's no temptation taken you , but it's common to man . God's faithful and has made a way of escape . That's the little X you've got to touch so you can get out of it , and so what you've got to do is watch and pray lest you enter into that temptation . And the way to be always ready to touch that X is to have the fear of God in your heart always .
Speaker 4And that's what we see with Jesus . I have a question for you . He mentions the fear of the Lord , but in addition to that , every time Jesus is tempted , he quotes scripture
. Yeah , how important is scripture memorization for us in fighting temptation .
Speaker 1Huge right , Psalm 119 . Flavorful .
Speaker 1Your word have I hidden in my heart that I may not sin against you ? How can a young man keep his way pure by keeping it according to your word ? I'm telling you , guys , there's no discipline that has been more helpful to me in times of temptation than having memorized Scripture . And again , what you're doing is you're loading yourself up to give the Holy Spirit an opportunity to activate God's Word at a given moment , in a given instance . That's what I love about it , because that's what God does . It's His Word and he brings it back to heart and mind . I'm not waiting for an esoterical word from the Lord . I'm not waiting for an audible voice . It's His Word , hidden in my heart , that the Spirit activates and that he uses to guard me in those moments .
Speaker 2So that makes the enemy tremble , but also reminds us of the promise that's in the Word yeah .
Speaker 1So it's got a dual purpose , but also reminds us of the promise that's in the word yeah , so it's got a dual purpose . How do we stand strong in the midst of that battle between the flesh and the spirit
?
Speaker 3I think that you run with the right people . You run alongside people that are like-minded . You link arms with people that are heading in the same direction . It's not enough to flee youthful lust , but we pursue all these other things with others who call on the Lord out of a pure heart . Right Blessed is the man who walks , not in the counsel of the wicked right . You become like-minded to those who you hang out with . So if you are going to hang out with people that are just entrepreneurs and that's all they're thinking about , you will somehow kind of catch that it will not so much be taught as much as it is caught .
Speaker 3So we want to hang out with people that have good morals , because bad company corrupts good morals . We want to run our race and run it well . Surround yourself with people that you think are running the race and running well . So run with the right people and run from wrong places . So you find yourself inside of a place where you typically wouldn't be . If you're going out to lunch with your pastor , Well then you don't need to really be hanging out at that place as it is . You have a problem with alcohol . Don't go hang out and have your Devo in the corner of the bar , right ? You don't need to be winning people for Christ in the bar if you have a problem with drinking , right ? So , yeah , I think that that's really what it is right . The idea is just you link arms with people that are like-minded , or people that are running the race , maybe a little bit better than you .
I think it's interesting to note that Jesus was led by the spirit of the wilderness and yet he said in the Lord's Prayer , for one of our prayer , the Lord's Prayer , lead us not into temptation . And then following that is deliver us from evil . The two go hand in hand Lead us not into temptation , but deliver us from evil . I think it's very noteworthy . You realize the word devil is four-fifths evil . It's just got a D on front . I see what you did there .
Speaker 1You realize the word devil is four-fifths evil , it's just got a D in front , so the D ruins it all .
Speaker 2No , give place to the devil and you give place to evil . So you don't want to give place to the devil , because evil comes with it .
Speaker 4Ultimately , what we're doing is we're talking about spiritual disciplines that help us with temptation . We've already talked about Scripture memorization . We've talked about prayer . Another important one is fasting . We see Jesus do this himself , and fasting was formerly a very common regular rhythm practice for the early Christians that I sense we've lost an element of it in our day today .
Speaker 4So many people don't fast , and those who do might do it on very rare occasions . And why fast ? Certainly it draws you closer to the Lord , independent at that moment . But something that Timothy Keller points out is that fasting also prepares you for temptation . He says . Fasting trains believers to resist natural and lawful urges so that when they face illicit promptings they can say no . In other words , when we willingly participate in neglecting ourselves of things that bring us joy , that isn't sin . What we're doing is we're building up a spiritual muscle to say no to when the devil is tempting us with sin .
Speaker 1I have a serious problem , Okay are you praying intensively about it , not just . You know , lord , bless my burrito and help me with this sin , praying intensively daily , continually . Are you fasting over the issue ? Are you reading books on the subject ? Are you getting counsel on it ? Are you memorizing scripture and studying the word on it ? If you haven't done all those , don't complain that you have this sin you're struggling with and don't say I just can't overcome this . It's just , it makes no sense .
Speaker 3Are there any books that you could ? Disciplines of a Godly man yeah , but listen , if you can get down what you just said , right ? This is the litmus test to see where you're at , if you really care about what you are struggling with . Go back to listen to what EZ just said . Go back 30 seconds and he just laid down your pathway out of that destructive path in which you've been found yourself marinating in . Right , it's that simple . Don't overthink it , don't overcomplicate it . One by one , go through those , and if you're saying to yourself , no , I'm not , then remember , return and repent . This is the idea , and you'll come out fine
on the other side . Yeah .
Speaker 1Thank you for tuning in to this week's highlights from the Living Waters podcast . Friends , we value your time , so we've created a bite-sized version of our podcast for listeners who want to get equipped , without the jokes and fellowship . Ah , be sure to check out the full episode every Thursday where we dive deeper into the topic . Until then , you can watch the full podcast episode available now on livingwaterstv .