Yeah, that's my love, my love, my love.
All right.
Song of this.
All right.
Another amazing year everyone.
Welcome to the Fayetteville Morning Baptist Church.
Great to see you here for our Sunday evening service.
You can all please have a seat, grab a hidden note.
To Song 219.
My burden has rolled away.
["All the Way, All the Way, All the Way"]
["All the Way, All the Way"]
["All the Way, All the Way, All the Way"]
["All the Way, All the Way"]
["All the Way, All the Way, All the Way"]
["All the Way, All the Way"]
["All the Way, All the Way, All the Way"]
["All the Way, All the Way"]
Amen.
Yes, you can.
Why?
Because it's pre-made, right, it's ready to go, so if your chili includes salsa in it,
it's kind of, it's a violation of the rules.
It's got to be from scratch, that's what scratch means.
As far as I understand it, I mean that's my interpretation of what I went over the
books in subsection four of paragraph three line two of the FWBC Chili Cook Up guidelines,
where it says, all chilies will be made from scratch.
You know, from scratch means no pre-seasoned ingredients.
Now, and then someone's like,
well, what about a dried pepper?
Well, a dried pepper is a raw ingredient, right?
I don't expect you to make a pepper
to then put into your, you know,
because nobody can do that.
You can grow a pepper,
but you cannot make a pepper from scratch, can you?
Right?
So chili is not from scratch, or excuse me,
salsa is not a from scratch ingredient.
That's why you can just pop it open
and put chips in it, right?
Because it's pre-made to taste that way.
So I apologize if I'm getting this information to you.
Do you have a question?
Yes, because those are individual ingredients.
As long as they're not seasoned.
Are they flavored?
Is this a flavored tomato, flavored beans?
Okay, it's just, yeah,
because that'd be no different than you,
all that someone did is boiled the beans for you,
or whatever, or stewed the tomatoes.
That's fine.
It's the pre-seasoning that you have to look out for.
Pre-seasoned ingredients.
The law clearly states, I've been over the code,
the chili cook-off code.
It's right there in black and white.
It's a book this thick.
But anyway, so hopefully,
I'm sorry if I'm getting that information
to you a little late,
but you know, the question came to me late this morning,
so I didn't realize that that was even a question.
Typically, if you have to ask,
then you kinda already know the answer, right?
But not always.
So thank you for clarifying on the canned ingredients.
So anybody else have any questions
about the chili cook-off before you go home
and make an invalidated chili at home?
The church will have some pumpkin and apple pie,
and some whipped cream to go.
We'll have the spice cider,
and I could pick up some flavored seltzer water,
but I'm not gonna get a bunch of Cokes
or anything like that.
If you want like a sweet, high-crutose corn syrup
in your drink, that's on you.
Okay, no judgment here, all right?
But I don't wanna spend church money on that poison.
I'll drink it, I'll drink poison,
but I'm gonna spend my own money on poison, you know?
So yeah, we'll have,
I believe someone's providing corn muffins already,
and then we're gonna have the pies,
some light refreshments, the cider, the bean dip,
chips, a plenty of chips.
I don't know that we decided
to bring sour cream and stuff.
I feel like if you feel like your chili needs sour cream,
that's on you, okay?
Because I don't think chili should need it.
I like to put it in there,
but we're trying to get the full effect.
Should we get,
who wants me to get sour cream and cheese?
All right, I'll get it, too.
All right, I digress.
I'm open to being influenced, all right?
Not like Aaron, I'm not gonna make you a golden calf,
but I will get you sour cream, all right?
I'll get a big tub of sour cream
and a bag of shredded cheese.
Does anyone have a particular blend?
What do we get, Kobe?
Do we get the cheddar?
Cheddar, cheddar?
That's the way.
Always cheddar.
When Mrs. Nunez tells you what cheese it is,
that's what you get, all right, that's it.
All right, so you get cheddar.
Cheddar, if you want a different blend of cheese,
it's on you, okay?
I can't get every blend of cheese out there.
But I can get you cheddar,
and I can get you sour cream, and I will, all right?
These are promises that I will follow through in.
So just remember my record, okay?
That I follow through on my campaign promises, all right?
Anything else regarding the chili cook-off?
This is kinda it, this is your last chance, okay?
And MSG is still banned, all right,
even though it's technically a raw ingredient.
Monosodium glutamate, right?
They say, hey, I was told, hey, that's a raw,
I was told, I don't know that I believe this.
I haven't taken time to Google it.
They say that's a single ingredient,
it's a raw ingredient, like salt, right?
So why is it banned?
Is that not the case?
It's a chemical.
So you're telling me it's made in a lab?
I think so, it's not like salt or garlic.
Right, okay.
It's unnatural.
Yeah, okay.
It forces you to like it.
It makes you like it.
Well, no wonder some of you wanna use it.
Yeah, good cooking shouldn't rely on it.
It shouldn't eat it, okay?
It shouldn't eat it.
Well, you say, oh, but this fast food place uses it.
Exactly, because it's one less step
that they have to put in the process.
You know, it's like, oh, we don't have to bother,
you know, going through the trouble
of actually making this taste good
because we have this chemical, right?
This chemical, this unnatural thing to just add to the,
don't get me going, all right?
So anything else?
I like this.
This is good, it's a good dialogue here
regarding the chili cook-off.
Okay, so who's gonna bring,
who's, people are gonna bring some games?
Yeah, well, I think we've got a few.
I know Risk will be here, so okay.
I was told that the Risk competition up in Tempe
that they had last Saturday got kind of intense, okay?
So just remember, folks, it's just a game, okay?
At the end of the day.
I'm all for people being competitive, all right?
But let's not sow discord among brethren over a game.
All right, so keep it sportsman-like, all right?
Anyway, I'm glad it got intense, though,
because, you know, at least to some degree,
because there's nothing worse than playing with people
who don't want to win, who don't really care,
because it makes your victory, you know,
so it just cheapens it, right?
People aren't really trying.
You like to see people get a little disappointed
when they don't win, okay?
But we don't want to go over the top, all right?
Okay, portraits, that's gonna be Sunday, November 26th.
That's coming up quick, so yeah, you got the date there.
We don't know the deal.
It's gonna be after the morning service.
There's a soul winning opportunity to Hunter Creek
on Saturday, November 4th, this Saturday,
so that's about a three-hour drive from here,
but you get up in the pines.
It's up near the Muggion Rim,
that area, Christopher Creek.
The expectant ladies list is there,
and then don't forget on the back,
the FW missions conference, BC missions conference.
This is coming up quick as well.
November 8th through the 12th,
so that's a Wednesday through a Sunday,
and you've got a lot of great preachers,
you're gonna be getting up there,
preaching a lot of exciting sermons
about the soul winning that has already been done,
and trying to provoke us to go out and do some more
in a lot of these same places.
A lot of these guys went and they kind of,
they're preaching about their scouting trips
in hopes that we're gonna go back with a larger group,
okay?
So these are all worth, if you can't make it,
make sure you tune in and at least catch these sermons,
and then you've got a couple of events
that are gonna be fun too.
Of course, the risks board game tournament,
and then alternatively,
there's gonna be games and drinks at a nearby park, okay?
And then you also have a roller skating night
there on Friday,
and we've ran out the facility,
so that's ours,
there's not gonna be a bunch of other people there,
they're not gonna be playing a bunch of worldly music,
so we have that to ourselves,
and then lots of soul winning opportunities
throughout the week.
So if you can make it up, great,
who thinks they can make it up
at least for one service or one night, okay?
I'm not trying to shame anybody if you can,
I'm just trying to get an idea.
So, and again, I'm not gonna have,
we're not gonna have a midweek service down here,
just because I don't wanna over church people that week,
the only option really is to move it back to Tuesday,
and that can be a lot,
especially for people that wanna go up there
and participate in that.
There will be a more detailed itinerary handed out
at the conference itself,
that'll have addresses and things like that,
so, and maybe a little bit more instruction.
But that's gonna do it for announcements,
let's go ahead and just quickly count up
the soul winning, we'll go back to Friday,
if anybody has anything from Friday,
or Saturday, wasn't there a couple, Saturday?
Two?
And then anything from today?
All right, we'll keep up the great work
soul winning everybody, let's go ahead
and sing one more song before we get into the preaching.
Side number 164, Praise Head Praise Head.
["Praise Head Praise Head"]
Amen, at this time we'll pass you off
at the plate, as the plate goes around.
We'll put up our Bibles to Matthew chapter four.
That's Matthew chapter four, as always,
read the entire chapter.
Please follow what's on there,
there's plenty of links to us
from Matthew chapter four.
Matthew chapter four.
Matthew chapter four, beginning at verse one,
the Bible reads,
Then was Jesus led up into the spirit
and into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.
And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights,
he was afterward hungry.
And when the tempter came to him,
he said, If thou be the son of God,
command that these stones be made bread.
But he answered and said, It is written,
And man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that was seeded out
of the mouth of God.
Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city,
and set him on a pinnacle of the temple,
and saith unto him, If thou be the son of God,
cast thyself down, for it is written,
He shall give his angels charge to certainty,
and in their hands they shall bear thee up,
lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.
Jesus said unto him, It is written,
Again, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
Again, the devil taketh him up
into an exceeding high mountain,
and show him all the kingdoms of the world,
and the glory of them.
And he saith unto him, All these things will I give thee,
if thou wilt fall down and worship me.
Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, saith it.
But it is written, And thou shalt worship
the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
Then the devil leaveth him, and behold,
angels came to minister unto him.
Now when Jesus had heard that John
was cast into the prison, he departed to gather them.
And leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum,
which is upon the sea-course of the borders
of Zablon and Naphtali, that it might be fulfilled,
which was spoken by Esaias the prophet,
saying, The land of Zablon, and the land of Naphtali,
and by the way of the sea beyond Jordan,
and the Galilee of the Gentiles,
the people which sat in the darkness saw great light,
and to them which sat in the region
in the shadow of death, light was sprung up.
From that time Jesus began to preach,
and to say, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
And Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee,
saw two brethren, Simon, called Peter,
and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea,
for they were fishers.
And he said unto them, Follow me,
and I will make you fish as a man.
And they straightway left their nets, and followed him.
And going on from thence, he saw other two brethren,
James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother,
in a ship with Zebedee, their father,
many their nets, and he called them.
And they immediately left their ship
and their father, and followed him.
And Jesus went about all Galilee,
teaching English synagogues,
and preaching the gospel of the kingdom,
and healing all manners of sickness,
and all manner of disease among the people.
And his fame went throughout all Syria,
and they brought unto him all sick people
that were taken with diverse diseases and torments,
and those which were possessed with devils,
and those which were lunatic,
and those that had the palsy, and he healed them.
And there followed him great multitudes
of people from Galilee, and from the capitalists,
and from Jerusalem, and from Judea,
and from beyond Jordan.
Brother Adam, can you pray for us?
Well, Lord, and Father,
just thank you for today, Lord God.
I had an opportunity to be in church, Lord God.
Just thank you for all you do.
Give you the glory and honor, Lord God.
And just thank you, Lord God.
Thank you for your goodness and mercy, Lord God.
I see you bless this young man
who got saved today, Lord God.
Just bless his life, Lord God.
And just thank you, Lord God.
Thank you for the opportunity to preach your word.
I see you bless the rest of your service, Lord God,
and feel the deacon with your spirit.
And just give us a heart of understanding, Lord,
in Jesus' holy name we pray, amen.
Amen. Amen.
So we'll be right back there in Matthew chapter four,
but I'm gonna continue on in the book of Mark,
chapter number one.
If you wanna go back very quickly to Mark,
I'm just gonna look at a couple verses there, Mark.
And of course we looked at this this morning
and two weeks ago that Sunday morning.
But if you look there in Mark chapter number one,
in verse number 12, this is following the baptism,
which is what we preached about this morning,
Jesus' baptism.
It says, after the baptism in verse 12,
immediately the Spirit driveth him into the wilderness.
And he was there in the wilderness 40 days,
tempted of Satan, and was with the wild beasts,
and the angels ministered unto him.
So, Mark very quickly sums up
what some of the other gospels go into
a little bit more detail over,
and that is the topic of Jesus in the wilderness
or Jesus' temptation, the temptation of Christ, okay?
So again, there in Mark 12,
you just get kind of a very general brief overview
where it says that he's driven into the wilderness
by the Spirit, he's there in the wilderness 40 days,
so you get the timeframe, that he's tempted of Satan,
and he was with the wild beasts,
and the angels ministered unto him.
So it's just this very quick, you know,
general description of everything that took place.
However, when you get into Mark four and Luke four,
you start to get a little bit more detail
about this temptation, about the things
that took place out there, okay?
So I wanna look at that tonight.
If you look there and go back to Matthew,
chapter number four, we'll look, first of all,
what is described there in Mark chapter one,
the fact that Jesus was tempted of Satan, right?
So he's driven into the wilderness,
he's there 40 days, and he's tempted of Satan.
Again, very quick in Mark, but in Matthew four,
we get a little bit more detail about this.
It says in verse one,
of the spirit into the wilderness
to be tempted of the devil, and he was,
had fasted 40 days and 40 nights,
he was offered word hungered,
and when the tempter came to him,
he said, if thou be the son of God,
command that these stones be made bread.
So, most of us are very familiar with the story
as, you know, you have these three different temptations
that Satan comes to and brings to Jesus,
and tries to get him to, you know, basically sin.
Now, I wanna also compare this with Luke chapter four,
so keep something in Matthew four
and go over to Luke chapter number four,
Matthew four and Luke four.
There are some very subtle differences here
between Matthew four and Luke four.
First of all, Matthew four, I believe,
is telling us what happened in chronology,
like the temptations are in order,
whereas if you read it in Luke,
some people might say, oh, that's a contradiction
because it's not in the order
in which Matthew tells it, okay?
But Luke's not, the wording in Luke
isn't trying to make it sound like it's in order,
whereas in Matthew, you'll see that it is trying
to tell it, it's describing it in a chronological order.
You can tell that by the wording that it's using, okay?
So, again, we're looking at Luke.
I won't take the time to go through all of Matthew,
we just read it, we'll come back in a minute,
but what are the temptations there?
It says, when the tempter came to him,
he commanded and said, he said,
if thou be the son of God,
command that these stones be made bread, right?
So that's the first temptation.
And of course, the second temptation in Matthew
is where he takes him up to the pinnacle of the temple
and he says, cast thyself down, right?
Because he said, it's written that
he shall give the angels charge concerning thee
and in their hands they shall bear thee up,
lest any time they dash thy foot against a stone,
saying he's gonna keep him
from physically harming himself.
If he dashed his foot against a stone
and were going to fall, that the angels would spare him
because he has,
obviously we understand the reasoning behind that
because Christ has to fulfill the mission,
the work that his father has given him to do
to fulfill his redemptive work, right?
Of redeeming man by dying on the cross.
So if he's gonna fall over
and throw himself off some pinnacle and die,
obviously that's not gonna happen
so the angels would intervene, right?
So that's the second temptation.
The first one is the bread, right?
Make these stones into bread.
The second one is where he's telling him
to cast himself from the pinnacle.
And then the last one is where he tells him
to fall down and worship him
and he will give him this power over the nations.
So that's what we see and read in Matthew
in that order, okay?
Whereas Luke, it's not in that order, okay?
Look at verse two being 40 days,
Luke four verse two, 40 days tempted of the devil
and those days he did eat nothing
and when they were ended after where he'd hungered
and the devil said unto him,
if thou be the son of God,
command that this stone that it be made bread.
So there's that first temptation
that is what Matthew starts out with.
That's the first temptation, right?
But if you notice there, it says in verse seven,
we'll start in verse five.
And the devil taking him up to an high mountain
showed him all the kingdoms of the world
in a moment of time.
And the devil said unto him,
all this power will I give thee and the glory of them
for that is delivered unto me unto whomsoever oil I give it.
If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine.
So that's the second temptation in Luke.
But in Matthew, that's actually what comes third, okay?
And then you see the third temptation in verse nine
and he brought him up to Jerusalem,
said I'm gonna pickle the temple
and said, if thou be the son of God,
cast thyself down from thence.
That's the third in Luke, that's the second in Matthew.
Okay, so it's a little bit out of order
if you wanna call it that in Luke,
it's not in the identical order.
But notice in Matthew, the uses of these words,
when, then, again, right?
So in verse three in Matthew four, it says,
and when the tempter came to him,
and that was after he was in hungered.
Verse two, it ends with afterward he was hungered
and when the tempter came to him.
And you get that same kind of timing in Luke as well.
It says that afterward and hungered
and the devil said unto him.
So the devil's tempting him at the end of these 40 days,
I believe, at the end of his fasting
when he's at his weakest.
So when the tempter came to him,
he commanded to make these things stone.
And it says in verse five,
then the devil taketh him up to the holy city.
In verse eight, again, the devil taketh him up
into an exceeding high mountain.
So that you kinda get the verbiage there in Matthew
that it's chronological,
because he's saying when he came to him,
then this happened, again, meaning and after that.
Whereas in Luke, he's just kinda,
he's stating the facts,
like these are the temptations that he faced,
these are the details, they match Matthew,
they're just not in the same order.
And that's, don't ever let some atheist
treat that like some aha moment, it's not.
It's just a matter of reading comprehension,
that's all it really is.
Just that's the way that Luke chose to describe it.
Matthew has it in that order.
Mark just says he was tempted,
it doesn't give us all the details.
It'd be kinda like if I were to say,
I went to the fair and I rode the teacups
and the Ferris wheel and the bumper cars.
Does that tell you what I did?
Does that tell you what happened?
Yeah, you'd say, hey, Deacon went to the fair
and he rode the teacups, the Ferris wheel
and the bumper cars.
Does it tell you what order I did it in?
Not necessarily.
I didn't say, hey, I did these things,
I rode these rides and here's the order
that I rode them in.
Isn't the order that I rode them in
kinda useless information to you?
You're like, that would be an interesting story
if I knew what order you rode those rides in.
I would care more.
You wouldn't care any more or less.
In fact, you probably want me to get the story
over with quicker.
It's like, this guy has given me
a bunch of useless information.
Say it snappy, make it quick.
What'd you do there?
What rides did you ride?
Well, first, let me tell you the first ride I rode
and then the second ride I rode.
It wouldn't matter.
So that's kinda the thing that's going on here with Luke.
He's just telling us, hey,
Jesus went out in the wilderness
and he was tempted to the devil.
Here's how the devil tempted him.
Whereas in Matthew, you kinda get the verbiage
where he's saying, this is the order
in which it happened.
Then the devil came to him.
Again, this happened.
So don't let anyone try to pull the wool over your eyes
or cast, hopefully that's not gonna shake
anyone's faith to begin with.
There's always an answer.
There's always an explanation.
But the enemies of God, people that hate the Bible,
they're always trying to find things and pick it apart.
And they haven't succeeded yet.
So people have been trying for hundreds of years
to pick apart the King James Bible
and point out the contradictions
and they've failed repeatedly
because it is the word of God, it's perfect.
There are no contradictions.
So the other thing I'll point out here
is that Matthew and Luke, they show us
that when Jesus is being tempted is at the,
toward the end or at the end of these 40 days.
That's 40 days of not eating.
That's a lot of not eating.
We go, it's been four hours and I'm starving, right?
It's been four hours since I last ate
and we feel like the devil's tempting us.
Everything that crosses our path
suddenly begins to look edible.
But Jesus going 40 days obviously
is a very extreme thing.
That's not a fast I would ever recommend to anybody,
going 40 days without eating.
Obviously there's more,
there's reasons why Jesus went through this.
He was brought to that breaking point or that limit
to be brought to that point of human weakness, right?
To be tempted as much as is possible, right?
That's kind of part of that, what's going on here.
Really wouldn't mean anything if on day one,
you know, the Satan shows up and says,
oh, you haven't eaten for 24 hours.
Turn these stones into bread.
Oh no, you know, I'm not gonna tempt God.
Man shall not live by bread alone.
You know, it really wouldn't mean as much, right?
Whereas 40 days later,
that temptation has a little more impact.
Anyone who's ever done any fasting knows
that food starts to take on
a whole nother meaning in your life.
Like you will actually begin to obsess about it, right?
If you go with several days without food,
all of a sudden things that didn't sound so good
start to sound good.
And things that, you know, maybe sounded good
start to sound really good, you know?
You'll start to look at bone broth differently.
You'll be eyeing sour cream in a whole new light, right?
All of a sudden these things just take on,
you know, you'll find yourself in the kitchen
just staring at whatever's being prepared.
Just the smelling of it is something to get out of it,
right, just you're just thinking about food, right?
Everyone's like, no, I don't have no idea
what you're talking about.
Right, but the point is this,
is that, you know, that's why Jesus waited 40 days,
this was a temptation for him.
You know, this wasn't easy.
And he has Satan himself coming to him
and tempting him to do this.
And it shows that Jesus is at his weakest.
Now, what's the point of that?
What's the point of Jesus being at this weak point
in order to make this temptation and being tempted there?
Well, it shows us the humanity of Christ, right?
We have to understand that Jesus's ministry
wasn't some cakewalk simply because he was God.
You know, we see Jesus being wearied.
Jesus goes through difficult things.
That doesn't mean it was easy for him.
You say, oh, of course Jesus could do all that.
He's God, right?
And obviously there's things that Jesus did and could do
that are impossible for us because he is God.
But don't, you know, don't get the wrong idea
and think that everything that Jesus went through
must have been easy because of the fact that he was God.
Oh, 40 days, 40 nights, stuff.
Yeah, pretty easy for the son of God.
You know, if I was the son of God, I could do it too.
You know, that's not true.
You know, that's not the attitude we have.
Obviously, he's very weak at this point.
It shows us the humanity, right?
And this is one of the great mysteries of Christ,
of him coming and taking on, you know, a human form,
of being man, the son of man,
is that he can be touched with the feeling
of our infirmities, as it says in Hebrews, right?
That he is tempted in all points, like as we are,
yet without sin.
And because of that, you know, we have a high priest
that can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities.
He can relate.
Like, there's nothing you go through in this life
that Jesus can't relate to.
You can't say, oh, you know,
I went through this temptation,
or I went through this trial,
or I've had this sorrow in my life.
God doesn't know anything about it.
Well, I mean, I know God knows about it,
but you know, he can't relate to me.
He doesn't know what that's like.
Yes, he does.
You know, if we find ourselves even, you know,
starving or going without food, even that,
Jesus knows what that's like.
He knows what it's like to be tempted of the devil,
to have the flesh want to do something,
and to, you know, violate scripture,
or to, you know, to do something sinful.
He knows what it's like to have that temptation.
If we find ourselves, you know, tempted by the flesh,
Jesus knows what that's like.
He was tempted at all points.
So he can't sit there and say,
well, you know, God just doesn't know
what I'm going through.
Yes, he does.
And not just in the sense that he can comprehend it,
in the sense that he can actually sympathize
and relate with us.
He knows what it's like
to have gone through these temptations.
Obviously, he's not being tempted with, you know,
necessarily sin itself,
but he knows what it's like
to go through battles with the flesh, okay?
And, you know, that gives us a great hope.
Like, he's tempted at all points, like as we are.
That's what it says in Hebrews four, I'll just read to you.
Yet without sin, what does that mean to us?
He says in verse 16,
let us therefore come boldly in a throne of grace.
You know, if we're tempted with something,
you know, the answer is to go to the throne of grace,
that we may obtain mercy
and find grace to help in time of need.
You know, if we're going through some temptation,
if we have some trial,
that should drive us to the throne of God.
It should compel us to go to God in prayer.
We should go there boldly
because God's not gonna say, what are you doing here?
You know, or God's gonna say, I don't wanna hear that.
God's not gonna jump down your throat.
God knows what it's like to go through these things
and he'll give us grace.
He'll give us mercy.
He'll give us help in our time of need.
Let's move along here in the story.
The first thing we see,
and I'm gonna kind of focus on Matthew four and Luke four,
if you wanna go back to Luke four,
just because we're talking about
the temptation of Christ,
that's kind of the next thing that happens
in Mark chapter one,
but it doesn't give us a lot of the details.
So we're looking at some of these parallel passages
to kind of see what all took place in Mark.
Mark tells us that he was driven into the wilderness.
He was there 40 days,
that he was tempted of Satan, right?
So we're talking about the temptation of Christ,
the devil tempting Jesus, right?
First of all, we see just some, you know,
the semantics surrounding the wording in Luke four
and Matthew four, okay?
And we see there's no contradiction there.
It's just verbiage.
But the other thing I wanna point out,
and this is kind of more of an interesting point,
at least I think, is that Satan here,
and in one of his temptations kind of shows us
who's in charge of this present world, okay?
And it is Satan.
Look at Luke chapter four, verse five.
And the devil, taking him up unto a high mountain,
showed unto him all the kingdoms of the world
in a moment of time.
So how does he show him all the kingdoms of the world
in a moment of time?
Well, obviously, how does Satan come to somebody
and show them anything?
It's obviously, it's supernatural, okay?
This is dealing with things that we don't understand
that are beyond our comprehension.
The Bible just says this is what happened,
we have to just trust it.
So he's showing all the kingdoms of the world
in a moment of time.
And the devil said unto him,
all this power will I give thee,
and the glory of them.
Now notice what he says here.
For that is delivered unto me,
and to whosoever I will, I give it.
He's saying, this isn't an empty promise.
He's saying, I'll give it to you
because I have that power, I have that authority.
It's been given unto me
to give it unto whosoever I will.
I can install anybody in this position, right?
If thou therefore will worship me, all shall be thine.
And we know, of course, Jesus said,
rebuked him, said, get thee behind me, Satan.
He's saying, you're gonna worship God only, all right?
But people will read that and they'll ask themselves,
is Satan telling the truth here?
Because obviously he's a liar and the father of it, okay?
Is Satan just lying to Jesus when he says,
hey, I'll give you all the kingdoms of the world,
if you fall out and worship me.
And then let's just say, Jesus did that,
and then he's like, ha ha, gotcha.
Tricked you, right, psych move.
I don't believe that's the case.
I believe Satan is telling the truth here.
You say, well, Satan's a liar.
Yeah, but he does tell the truth too, right?
And I believe that Jesus, if you look first of all,
you say prove it.
Well, first of all, Jesus' refusal to do so
is not necessarily a rebuttal of that fact.
What fact?
The fact that Satan has the ability to make that offer.
Just because Satan refused it
doesn't mean he's arguing whether or not that's true.
Okay, it's not a rebuttal.
Everyone follow?
Because he just says, get thee behind me,
and if it is written, thou shalt worship the Lord thy God,
and him only shalt thou serve.
Really, in Jesus' response,
it sounds more like he's confirming that this is true.
He's saying, get behind me,
because I'm not gonna worship you.
You should only worship God, right?
That's what's commanded the scripture.
He doesn't say, you're a liar, that's not true.
God is the only one that's in control in this world.
And obviously, we know that ultimately,
God is the one that is in control of these worlds.
But Satan is saying, it's been given unto me,
who is it given unto him by, by God,
to give it to whosoever he will.
So first of all, Jesus refusing it
is not necessarily a rebuttal of that fact,
but if you look also at some other of these scriptures,
you'll see that scripture actually corroborates this fact.
It confirms this, okay?
If you wanna go over to Revelation chapter number 20,
I'll kind of move quickly through this point.
Let me just read some other scriptures to you
while you go to Revelation 20
to prove that the devil, I believe,
was telling the truth here, when he said,
hey, I can give this kingdom to whosoever I will.
It's given unto me to put people in this position.
The Bible says in Galatians chapter one, verse three,
grace be to you and peace from God the Father
and from our Lord Jesus Christ,
who gave himself for our sins,
that he might deliver us from this present evil world
according to the will of God and our Father.
So he's delivering us from the evil world.
What makes the world evil?
There's sin in it and the fact that
we battle against principalities and powers
in high places, right?
Second Corinthians 4, 14,
in whom the God of this world
hath blind to the minds of them which believe not,
and that's a little g there.
The God of this world, little g God,
of this world hath blinded the minds
of them which believe not,
lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ
through the image of God should shine unto them, right?
So the Bible's saying that there is a God of this world.
That's obviously a reference to Satan, okay?
The Bible's calling him the God of this world.
Ephesians 2, and you hath he quickened,
who were dead in trespasses and sins,
where in time past you walked,
according the course of this world,
according the prince of the power of the air,
the spirit that now worketh
in the children of disobedience.
So he's calling him the prince of the power of the air,
right?
So Satan obviously has some kind of,
when it's saying the power of the air,
it's kind of an interesting statement,
like he has the ability maybe to just move very quickly,
or, you know, I don't exactly,
but one way I've heard it preached
is think about all of the,
I'm not saying this is what Ephesians means by it,
but it's definitely a good application.
Think about all the wicked things
that are transmitted through the air.
It's a lot of things, isn't it?
Think of all the things that come over radio waves.
You know, start there.
Think of all the things that have been transmitted
through the air via radio waves, all the rock music.
Yes, your rock music, all the hip hop,
all the gangster rap,
all the worldly music that is teaching a philosophy,
that is singing about ungodly things,
about wicked things.
Think about all the things
that the music industry glorifies.
It's ungodly, it's wicked, it's sinful.
I mean, do I need to park it here for a minute
and talk about it?
This is getting quiet in here.
Of course, it's always kind of quiet in here.
You guys are just like always under conviction.
It's like any minute when you just,
you come in feeling guilty.
Well, maybe you should.
With a lot of things get transmitted,
you know, over, you just radio waves alone.
You know, he starts going through that radio dial.
You know, you're gonna hear songs about drunkenness
and fornication.
You're gonna hear about blasphemy, you know, blasphemy,
people using the Lord's name in vain.
He truly is, you know, in one sense,
that's how he's the prince of the power of the air,
the power of the air to transmit these things.
What's another thing that's transmitted through the air?
How about Wi-Fi, right?
That's all the filth
that's coming through the internet these days.
You know, and for the sake of children,
I'll not go into it.
You know, there's, we know that it's out there.
All the pornography, all the, just all kinds of things,
all the Wicked movies, all the things, you know,
maybe even not what the world would consider pornography,
but you know, what about, you know,
just all the movies with adulterous relationships?
You know, all the movies that are being, you know,
is everything streaming now?
Everything's streamed now.
Like people don't even have DVD players anymore, right?
They don't have, you know, cassette tapes or anything.
That's not the popular thing.
Everything's being downloaded and streamed over the air,
right?
You say, how does Satan attack us?
How does Satan work against the world?
Well, it's, the battle is in your mind.
That's where it is, okay?
And how does he influence our minds?
Through things like music, like movies,
you know, all kinds, you know, through media, right?
That's how Satan gets to us.
That's how he influences the world.
I mean, just look at the way the world's gone.
Look at the ideas that the world has
about different things.
Where did they get that?
Hollywood, right?
They've adopted these philosophies.
Obviously other institutions, public education systems,
institutions of higher learning, you know,
media outlets, I understand that,
but not a lot of people are, you know,
paying attention to that stuff.
Not everybody goes into institutions
of higher learning, do they?
A lot of people don't.
A lot of people elect to not pursue that.
So how do we end up where we are?
A lot of the influence comes through the culture.
It comes through the movies.
It comes through television shows.
It comes through the programming.
They call it programming for a reason
because it will program you, right?
And you know, even in innocent things,
and I'm not saying everything that you could take in,
every bit of culture that you could consume,
you know, a lot of, like another one,
real sensitive topic,
that if you want to make people mad real quick
is to bring up professional sports, right?
Is there anything inherently sinful
about watching professional sports?
No, there's nothing wrong
with watching grown men play a child's game.
That's what it is.
There's nothing wrong with watching a bunch of,
you know, long haired sketch pads, basically,
run around a field or a basketball court,
you know, and boast and think that they're just
the greatest thing that's ever
walked the face of the earth.
They're all the goat, whatever, okay?
There's nothing wrong with that necessarily.
But what about all the other crap that they fit in there,
you know, during the time out,
during the commercial break?
What about all that stuff?
The stuff that just pops up?
You know, and here's the thing,
as soon as I get on that, everyone's like,
oh, well, you know, what about social media?
You know, well, that too.
You know, you think if I don't,
see, this is the problem
when you start getting specific about sin
is people start picking apart
the things you don't mention, right?
Whatever I don't mention now is like,
I'm either condoning it or you're off the hook, right?
This is how people think.
I've been doing this for a little while,
you know, this is how people think.
Well, you know, he didn't mention my sin.
You know, he didn't mention my,
the platform that I use
that is being broadcast over the air.
Yeah, even the social media.
You know, the ads that just pop up,
the things that you're just scrolling along
and then boom, there's just some ad in your face.
It's like, whoa, I don't want to see that.
You know, it's all out there, you know,
and we should all try to temper that
and keep that under control, okay?
That's the prince of the power of the air.
I mean, what else does he mean by that?
You know, is it something to do with his ability,
how he moves through the earth or, you know,
it's an interesting title that's given to Satan,
that he has this power over the air to manipulate it
and to use it and to influence people's minds
and to really just sway entire societies
and steer people away from God, okay?
I'm just making sure I felt like I said
everything I need to say about that.
I think I did.
I'm sure I'll get more later.
But you know, I believe that's another,
these are just scriptures showing us that Jesus
or that Satan is telling the truth
when he tempts Jesus and says,
it's given unto me to give this power
to whosoever I will.
The Bible's showing us that he's the God of this world,
that he's the prince of the power of the air,
the spirit that now worketh
in the children of disobedience.
Look at Revelation 20 where I had you turn, verse one.
And I saw an angel come down from heaven
having the key of the bottomless pit
and a great chain in his hand,
and he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent,
which is the devil and Satan,
and bound him a thousand years.
So this is going into the millennial reign of Christ.
Satan is gonna be bound and removed from the earth
for a thousand years.
And he cast him into the bottomless pit
and shut him up and set a seal upon him.
Notice this, that he should deceive the nations no more.
So Satan has the ability to deceive the nations, right?
And look, he's that old serpent.
He's good at it.
Satan has been deceiving nations for a very long time.
He's really known how to just manipulate people,
manipulate man, and to just steer things to his end.
Even the good old US of A, it's an ungodly nation.
We might have started out good.
We might have started out with Christian principles.
We might have started out with Christians
maybe under the broader umbrella of Christianity,
whatever stripe they were from,
but they at least were decent, moral people
that had respect for the word of God in the Bible.
We might be have been founded on biblical principles,
but we have wandered far from that path as a nation.
And I don't think I need to take a lot of time tonight
to convince anybody in this room of that.
Anyone who has two eyes and two ears,
even one of each really at this point,
or just one of any of those can look around
or listen to where we're at as a nation
and see how far we've come.
And that's kind of putting it in a positive light,
how far we have descended is really what I should say
into the cesspool of sin that is our modern society.
And I'm sorry to be so negative, but it's just the truth.
You know, it's a wicked nation, right?
Why?
Because Satan deceives the nations
and we can see his hands all over this country
and he's manipulated it and he's deceived people
and steered them away.
How does he do it?
Well, prints the power of the air through the culture,
through people's minds, through philosophy.
Now notice verse seven,
and when the thousand years were expired,
millennial reign is over,
Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,
he's gonna bring him back out of the bottomless pit
and he shall go to deceive the nations
where it's from the four quarters of the earth.
So he's gonna be let loose
in order to just do it all again.
And you know what, he does it.
He rallies mankind and actually tries to assault Christ
in the new Jerusalem itself and is destroyed.
But isn't that interesting?
That after a thousand years of having Christ
rule and reign on the earth,
just after a short season of the devil being loosed,
he instantly can just deceive the nations once more
and turn them on Christ himself,
who's been here literally on the earth ruling and reigning.
It's been a thousand years of Christ reigning
yet man is ready to just turn on a dime
against the Lord.
Satan has that power to deceive the nations.
He's very good at it.
He's that old serpent.
So that's the first aspect that I wanna look at
when it comes to Jesus in the wilderness here,
his temptation, right?
He's taken out 40 days and he's tempted.
These temptations are interesting.
What do we see?
That Jesus is humanity, right?
He is hungered.
And we see that Satan rather has this power
to give unto whoever's every will,
this ability to reign and to govern, to rule, right?
So keep that in mind during this election year.
Isn't that what people always say though?
Well, I gotta choose the lesser of two evils, right?
Well, I'm just voting for the lesser of two evils.
Well, how's voting for evil working out for you?
I remember seeing, reading an article, it was satire.
And it was saying, lesser of two evils be damned,
I'm going all the way in.
I'm gonna vote for the greatest evil I can.
This election cycle,
I will write in Lucifer, the Prince of Darkness.
Who do you want for president?
I say all in.
Let's just, why lesser of two evils?
Let's just vote in Satan himself.
And what's the point of voting for evil at all?
I know I'm kind of ranting
and getting a little political about it,
but people sometimes just don't think about the fact
that who is really in charge
of everything that's been going on in this world?
I'm not saying that Satan
just has an absolute stranglehold,
that he makes every single move,
but he is definitely steering the course of our nations
and of the world.
And the longer this goes on,
the more adept he's become at it,
the more effective he is.
And you could call it a harebrained conspiracy theory
or some far out wild-eyed idea,
but I believe that the people
that are the highest echelons of power and influence
are in some way have,
at least in some way, avowed allegiance to Satan.
I don't think you get that high up.
And you say, the president?
Well, there might even be people
that are higher up than that.
The real people that are really in control
and influencing this world
are probably people we don't even know.
A lot of these people are just put out there,
they're just a facade, a facade of what's,
oh, it's these certain government bodies
that are controlling it.
Obviously they do have some power,
but who's really pulling the strings?
The broader influence is probably by people
and organizations that we don't even know
that are quite literally Satanists.
I believe that.
And you can call that crazy, but you know what?
I just read several passages in scripture
that tell us that Satan has that power and ability.
And when he's tempting Christ, he's saying,
it's given unto me to give this power
to whosoever I will.
All the glory of these kingdoms.
I don't think he's lying.
I think he literally meant that.
But we don't wanna get carried away with that stuff.
It's a shame to speak of those things
which are even done of them in secret.
What they do in these secret societies,
the stuff that they're into, I'd rather not know.
And the few times I have started to delve
into that a little bit and research that stuff,
you walk away, it keeps you up at night
and you feel sick to know
that there's that kind of wickedness in the world
even in the halls of our own government.
And a lot of it's just playing right out there.
It's as plain as the nose on your face.
I mean, abortion, it's just like, that is satanic.
The wholesale slaughter of the unborn,
it's just the fingerprint of Satan himself, okay?
And I don't wanna go on and on that.
I wanna get through these two verses.
I got a whole nother verse to get through tonight,
all right?
I'm feeling old IFB up here.
Or I'm just covering two verses out of a chapter.
But you know, hey, I think it's good.
Slow down and look at these things.
So he's out there in Mark.
He's driven into the wilderness, it says in Mark 1.
And he's there in the wilderness 40 days.
He's tempted of Satan.
What else does Mark show us?
That he was with the wild beasts.
Now that's an interesting detail
that only Mark brings up
when it comes to the temptation of Jesus
when he's in the wilderness
is that he was with the wild beasts, right?
And you know, basically what he's talking about here
I believe is wild or dangerous animals, right?
I mean, it's not really noteworthy
to bring up that he was just with wild animals, right?
That's not really like, ooh, wow,
you were out there with crickets or something, you know?
Like the birds were there, right?
Well, of course, you know, that's just kind of given.
I believe he's out there with like dangerous animals
because that's the way that phrase is often used
in scripture, not always.
But for example, in Leviticus,
you go to Psalm 50, go to Psalm 50.
In Leviticus it says,
and if you walk contrary to me,
this is the Lord speaking to the nation of Israel.
He says, if you walk contrary to me
and will not hearken unto me,
I will bring seven times more plagues upon you
according to your sins.
That's one part of that curse.
He's saying, if you disobey my law
and walk contrary to me,
then I'm gonna bring seven times more plagues upon you.
He's gonna send disease and pestilence
among the people, right?
That's one curse that comes from
a nation disobeying God, okay?
The other one, verse 22, he said,
I will also send wild beasts among you.
So obviously, what are the wild beasts there?
He's talking about man-eaters,
dangerous animals that can inflict
great bodily harm upon you, okay?
Which shall rob you of your children
and destroy your cattle and make you few in number
and your weight in your high wall shall be desolate.
He's saying, you won't be able
to fortify yourself against them.
And they're gonna destroy your livestock
and they'll even take away your children
and destroy them.
They'll prey on the weak.
These wild beasts, right?
So he's talking about dangerous animals there.
You know, and I told myself
I wasn't gonna go off on this.
But today, you say, well,
how can we bring that into modern America?
What way, you know, is God doing anything similar?
Now, I'm not gonna say that
this is necessarily the judgment of God.
But you know, it seems to me like
there has been an increase of wild beasts in our country.
By wild beasts, I mean dangerous animals.
And by dangerous animals, I mean pit bulls, okay?
And I know this is a hobby horse of mine,
but mount up, okay?
Because it needs to be preached.
You know, I just, I look into this
and every time I look into it,
I wish I hadn't because it's just,
it's just horrifying.
The number of fatalities and deaths
that are on the rise in this country,
just in the last decade or so,
just since the 90s,
since people started lifting bands on dangerous breeds,
it's just skyrocketed, okay?
And look, I'm not against anyone
that's had a pit bull or anything like that.
I'm not against necessarily even against pit bull orders
if they realize what they have.
What really gets under my skin are pit bull apologists,
people that wanna sit there and apologize
and basically treat me like I'm stupid,
like the rest of us can't just look at the facts
and see what's going on here, okay?
And make excuses for these animals.
They're dangerous, okay?
And then you hear the stupidest arguments,
and I know I'm going off,
but I gotta get it off my chest.
Let's say, well, you know chihuahuas bite people too.
And look, you could Google, and I did this,
you know, I went, okay,
well, maybe there's some legitimacy to this,
and I did Google chihuahua moles child
or something like that,
and I told a story about how one little kid
had his lip bit severely, and his little lip was dangling,
and I'm sure you could find where infants
and young children are being mauled, okay?
But young children and infants are so defenseless,
like that's the only thing a chihuahua could maul.
There's no grown man, there's no young child,
an older child in here that's afraid of a chihuahua.
Right, I mean, no one wants to get bit.
And here's the thing, if you're gonna sit there
and tell me, well, chihuahuas bite people too,
should they be exterminated?
Go ahead, go ahead, kill the chihuahuas too.
Leave the pugs alone, but go ahead.
You know, pugs are too blind and dumb
to be able to bite anybody, right?
They just blow snot on you, that's what they do.
It's like Slimer, right, from that movie years ago,
back in the 80s, I got slimed, right?
But the, you know, people, well, what about chihuahuas?
You know, well, you know, and I hate to get graphic,
but, you know, I have yet to see a chihuahua
peel the scalp off of a child.
I have yet to see chihuahuas, or any other breed,
for that matter, literally dismember an adult.
I've yet to see stories about chihuahuas
and other breeds breaking through fences,
busting down doors, climbing over fences,
tunneling under fences, and going to the neighbors,
you know, going through the neighbor's door
and killing the pet in there.
Or attacking some passerby and killing them.
You know, it's, you hear about it all the time.
You just go Google it, go look at the stories,
read it all the time.
You know, join some of the Facebook groups I'm in,
and it's just like a constant feed
of just mauling after mauling, you know,
and every time, every time some parent's child
is mauled or killed by one of these family pets,
they all say the same thing.
Oh, they were so sweet and so cuddly and so nice,
and it just seemed like they never would have hurt anybody.
That's what they all say, okay?
And look, you know, and I'm preaching this
because I know that there's people out there
that own pit bulls and have small children.
And I'm not preaching it because I'm trying
to make them mad or just upset them.
I'm preaching it because I can't imagine, you know,
the horror of, especially after hearing this
and being told, look into it,
and then not doing it and then have that happen.
Imagine the guilt you would feel.
You know, your child is permanently disfigured.
Your child is dead.
Your child lost an arm.
Because, oh no, pit bulls aren't like that.
Oh, these dogs that were literally bred
for blood sport aren't like that.
It's, oh, they're raised.
It's genetics.
It's in their genes.
That's why sheep dogs, you can't train a chihuahua
to be a sheep dog, can you?
You can't train any other breed nearly as well
as like, what's a good sheep dog, Karen?
I'll give you permission to speak in the church.
A border collie, right?
There's certain dogs that are just, you know,
genetically predisposed to be great shepherds,
to work with that livestock.
Because it's genetic.
Obviously there's training, but you know,
you can't train other breeds to do what they do.
They just won't get it.
They'll just look at you like, stupid, right?
The Labrador, whatever.
But, you know, pit bulls, you could say,
it's the way they're brought up.
It's the genes.
It's the way they were bred, okay?
Now imagine being someone who owned one
and being told this, and having something like that
happen to your child.
Or imagine having your child be attacked by that animal
and then despising and resenting you
for the rest of their life.
That's another possibility.
You know, even if they survive and live
with whatever permanent injuries, you know,
go look at the stats, folks.
I'm challenging you because the fact that,
the fact is, when a pit bull bites,
it's not like a chihuahua.
So all dogs bite, but not all of them let go.
All dogs bite, but not all of them let go.
And pit bulls don't let go until the job's done,
until hunks of flesh have been removed,
until bones have been cracked,
until deep tissue damage that is going to require
plastic surgery, hundreds of thousands,
if not millions of dollars worth of surgery
and screen grafts and everything else.
I know I'm going off, but I gotta get it off my chest.
You say, why?
Because at my house, my neighbor was kind enough
to get a pit bull.
And it's literally from here to that wall from my door.
And I have a wood fence, and every day I look out there
and he's dug himself a little hole to sleep in,
and now I've gotta go out there
and put block underneath the fence
to keep him from tunneling under the fence
and trying to get in the backyard.
You say, would that dog ever do that?
Maybe not, but do I really wanna take the chance
with a breed that is known to maul
and dismember human beings?
Why is this on the rise?
Could you say, maybe that is a judgment from God.
You ever think about that?
Maybe that's why we live in a state
where the federal government has overruled
the local governments and says,
you cannot ban breed-specific dogs
other than wolf hybrids.
That's the only dog that our local government
in Tucson and Pima County has the right to ban.
Do you hear me?
I mean, the federal government,
they do ban pit bulls from all of their housing
because they know what they're dealing with.
And there's other states like Colorado
where they're banned.
States like Washington, that was recently overturned
where they have banned the ownership of these animals.
You can't do it here
because the federal government has stepped in
and said, no, okay.
Maybe that is a judgment from God
to just let wild animals,
dangerous animals come in amongst us
and start to maim and devour.
Or maybe it's just people being ignorant.
I don't know.
Anyway, now that I've pissed everybody off
in the room, probably.
This was something that he dealt to do.
I gotta make an application.
We got the wild animals.
He's out there.
Mark brings it up.
He's with the wild animals.
He's with dangerous creatures, right?
So think about that.
That's a miracle in and of itself, isn't it?
That Jesus is out there with these wild animals
and yet he walks away unscathed.
Must not have been any pit bulls, no, I'm just kidding.
I'm gonna keep bringing it back, right?
But these animals didn't touch him and it's just,
again, it testifies the deity of Christ,
the protection of God,
that although they were there, he was with them,
they were not able to harm him.
Look at Psalm 50.
Are you there, verse 10?
For every beast of the forest is mine
and the cattle upon a thousand hills.
I know all the fowls of the mountains
and the wild beasts of the field are mine.
God can even control these animals.
So let me end on this point.
It's interesting.
What do we see in this temptation, right?
I mean, it's pretty intense when you think about it.
It wasn't just Jesus out there being hungry.
It wasn't just him fasting for 40 days.
It's him in the wilderness with these wild animals.
It's him in the wilderness, yes, fasting,
but then also being tempted of Satan himself
who has the power to give to whosoever he will
the glories of this world,
the glories of the kingdoms of this world.
He has great temptation.
I mean, have you ever faced a temptation like that?
Probably not.
We've all probably gone through temptations,
but no one's ever come to me and said,
hey, you wanna be supreme dictator
or something like that of the world,
or given some glory of some kingdom?
Thank God.
Who knows who amongst us can resist
some of these greater temptations?
The Bible says that God will not allow us
to be tempted above that which we are able.
But Jesus went through this.
Now, what I wanna point out here in Mark,
how did Jesus come to be there?
Because it tells us in Mark.
How did Jesus come to be in the wilderness
going through these great temptations and trials
with these wild beasts?
How did he come to be there?
It says in Mark chapter one, verse 12,
immediately, right after the baptism,
the spirit driveth him into the wilderness.
That's a very interesting word there.
And I believe it was Luke, it says that he was led,
or maybe it was Mark, or Matthew,
one of the two where he was led into the wilderness.
In Mark, it says he was driven into the wilderness.
Now, a drive, it doesn't mean that he got,
the spirit pulled up in a car,
you know, like it was his Lyft or something,
an Uber, a taxi, and said,
hey, I gotta get you to the wilderness.
Driving is like the sense that you would think of
like a cattle drive,
or you're forcing animals to a certain destination,
or you're pushing them along, right?
Or you're driving some,
you know, I was driven to it.
You know, they drove me mad.
They, you know, they, I didn't choose to go there.
I was driven there, right?
You see how that word's being used?
So Jesus is being driven to this place.
It wasn't like he,
it was an appointment that was on his calendar
and he rushed off to be there.
The spirit had to drive Jesus to this place.
Meaning, you know,
I believe this is not necessarily something
that Jesus would have chosen for himself, okay?
Now, obviously, he's without sin.
He's going to obedient to God's will.
We know that.
But this and in other places,
we see where Jesus was doing things
that he would preferred who have not have done.
Who signs up for this?
Who signs up to go out in the wilderness
to be tempted of the devil,
to fast and go through these things,
to be with these wild animals?
Nobody.
And again, it shows us the humanity of Christ.
And it also shows us the obedience of Christ, okay?
You know, God, he's driven by the spirit.
And what I want to,
the point I want to make is this,
is that God will force us into situations
we would not rather be in in our lives.
We also will go through temptations and trials, okay?
Sometimes I feel like I'm among the wild beasts,
you know, at my house, right?
But you know, literally, we will probably
go through other temptations and trials in our lives.
Look, you're going to go through things in life
that God has ordained for you to go through.
Living for the Lord.
All that live godly in Christ Jesus
shall suffer persecution.
You will go through tribulation if you live for God.
And no one signs up for that.
No one says, yeah, persecution, sign me up.
But we have to recognize the fact
that that's part of the deal, right?
That God will drive us or lead us into situations
that we would not have chosen for ourselves.
If we're going to follow God,
we better just, you know, count the cost now
of the fact that we're going to find ourselves
in situations that are hard and difficult.
We're going to go through temptations
and trials as a result.
How about just the fact that, you know,
following Christ and living godly in Christ Jesus,
that means you're going to mortify
the members of your flesh.
The Bible tells us to mortify the deeds of our body,
right, to get the sin out.
That right there, you're signing up for a battle.
It's not like you just decide one day like,
okay, I'm done, you know, living for the flesh.
That's it.
That's a battle you have to fight
every single day of your life.
That's never going to go away until you're dead
or, you know, raptured, you know, when Christ returns.
You know, so that's just one example, okay?
That's just a given in the Christian life.
But what about the fact that, you know,
God might drive us to places or lead us to places
that we would not have chosen for ourselves in our lives?
You know, and it's hard for me to get specific
because, you know, I don't know exactly
what God's going to do in your life, okay?
But I can get specific with the Lord.
He was driven into the wilderness, right,
and went through these things,
and it was the spirit that drove him.
It was God that, you know, that same sweet, you know,
Holy Spirit that came down and bodily shaped like a dove
only a few verses before
is now driving him into the wilderness
to go through this great temptation,
a greater temptation than any man, woman has ever faced,
ever, okay?
And, you know, Christ goes through these things.
You know, there's other examples.
I know I gotta wrap it up
because I went off too long on pit bulls again.
It was a stupid use of my time, but it felt good.
Make a good clip, right?
Well, what about, you say, well, give us an example,
right, well, how about in Matthew 23 or 26
where Jesus constrains the disciples to get into a ship
while he himself goes apart to pray
up in the mountain, right?
And then immediately that ship, when it's in the sea,
is driven with the winds and tossed.
They're gonna sink.
And then Jesus comes walking on the water
and they think it's a spirit, you know the story.
And then he says, you know, be not afraid, it's me.
He reveals himself.
And then Peter says, you know,
if it be, you bid me to walk on the water, right?
And Jesus is like, come on out, right?
And then of course, we know the story.
Peter steps out and begins to walk on the water.
But when he saw the winds and waves boisterous,
he began to doubt and sink and cried out, Lord, save me.
And God saved him, like literally reached out his hand
and lifted him up, like spared him from drowning,
Let me ask you something,
do you think Jesus was just ignorant
of all that was gonna happen,
that when he constrained his disciples to get in the ship,
did he just forget to check the weather?
Is that what happened?
You know, he didn't turn on the NOAA broadcast
on his AM radio.
Some of you have no idea what I'm talking about.
There's no maritime community here, okay?
Right, he didn't get the wave report, right?
You know, how high the waves were gonna be,
what winds, how many knots they were gonna be blowing.
Right, he didn't get all that information, he just forgot.
He knew very well that when he constrained them,
constrained them, meaning he didn't ask nicely,
he's like, get in the ship and go to the other side.
It's like he's telling them to do it.
He's driving them to do this.
He knew full well that they were gonna run
head into a storm, and then on top of that,
he knew when Peter said, hey, can I come in the water,
do you think that Jesus was surprised
when Peter began to sink?
He let that happen.
He forced them into that situation.
Look, following God, you're gonna find yourself
in potentially maybe even physically perilous situations.
You're gonna be driven into a wilderness,
so to speak, in your own life.
You're gonna have to go through things that are hard.
But what we can never do is sit back and say,
well, God must not know what it's like.
No, he knows what it's like and all the more.
We're the ones that are ignorant of what it's like
to go through real temptation and trials and suffering
on the level in which Christ went them through.
We can never even fathom what that was like.
Again, it kinda goes back to us saying earlier this morning
is don't think that Jesus being tempted was easy,
that he just got, well, maybe it was,
I think I said it tonight, that it was just easy for him
like, oh, that must have been easy,
just telling the devil off.
No, it was hard.
And there's other proof of this.
I gotta find it.
Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch.
When Jesus is in the garden,
I think I just forgot to put it in here.
Think about when Jesus went into the garden
before the crucifixion.
The Bible says that he began to become heavy.
He took his disciples with him
and he began to become heavy and very sorrowful, right?
And then when he's in the garden
before the crucifixion, what does he pray?
Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass for me.
He's literally asking to not have to go through it, right?
He's saying, so again, it's just another proof text
that shows us that Jesus was forced to do things
that the humanity of him didn't wanna do.
He did things he didn't wanna do in obedience to God, okay?
That's a great lesson for us.
Jesus being driven in the wilderness
and going through all this, we have to understand
it's something he did not choose to do.
He did not choose to obey,
but it's not something that he would have signed up for
or elected to do, like if he's given options.
Do you wanna do this or not?
You know, if it was an option to have not done it,
if it be possible, let this pass for me.
Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done.
That's the same attitude we have to have in our lives.
Because we will be driven,
God will lead us into perilous waters.
Following God and serving him
is going to make you uncomfortable.
You're gonna go through hard things.
But the great thing about it is that,
if you would go to look for, and I'll wrap up there,
is that if you do go through it,
you get to see God work on your behalf.
Because at the end of all that,
the Bible says that the angels ministered unto him.
You know, God leads us into danger,
but danger is necessary for deliverance.
Danger is necessary for deliverance.
If we never put ourselves in these positions,
if we never allow ourselves to be driven
or led into these difficult things,
then we never get the satisfaction
of having gone through it.
We never get to have the experience.
We never get to have the hope.
If you look there in Luke chapter four,
it says in verse 13,
and when the devil had ended all the temptation,
he departed from him, and notice, for a season.
He's not done.
He's gonna come back.
It's interesting that it's for a season, okay?
You know, that's the thing.
We can't sit there and think,
well, I got victory today, I'm good.
You know, I crucified the flesh today.
I got over this sin today.
That's it, I'm done.
Nope, the devil will come back.
You know, the Bible will say,
resist the devil and he will flee from you, right?
Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
That's a fact.
If we resist God, or excuse me, resist the devil,
he's gonna give up and say,
you know what, this guy, every time I try,
he just, he prays, he's memorizing scripture,
he's quoting, he's doing what Jesus did.
Get thee behind me, Satan, for it is written, right?
And we quote scripture, we memorize things,
and we crucify the flesh,
and we go through our own temptations and our own lives,
and we resist the devil,
we resist the temptation to do wrong,
the devil will flee.
You know, the way I heard it is that
the devil is gonna come along
and he's got his little fishing lure
and he's gonna cast that lure out in front of you
and he's gonna see if you're gonna bite.
And if you're gonna look at that lure and say,
well, I know that's not something I wanna bite into.
There's the hook.
You know, I can see the line.
I know where that's leading.
I know who's at the end of that rod.
Satan, right, this is a temptation.
Well, he's only gonna try that lure a few times,
but you know what, he might show up later
with a different lure.
He might show up with another, you know,
temptation to try and say,
well, let me see if this one works on him
or let me see if this, maybe he's a little weaker now.
Maybe try this one again, right?
Resist the devil, he will flee from you,
but you know what, that's not a one-time deal.
That's something that you're gonna have to do
repeatedly in your life, you know,
and let him that thinketh he standeth
take heed lest he fall, right?
Well, you know, I've already gotten over all these sins.
I've already gotten, you know,
I've already resisted all these temptations.
I've gotten, you know,
I've gotten away from these sinful habits.
You know, that's a foolish way to think
because that you're setting yourself up for a fall, okay?
So it was for a season, but notice here,
it says in Luke 4,
he departed from for a season, verse 14,
and Jesus returned and the power of the Spirit
into Galilee.
So yes, it was the Spirit that drove him,
in Mark, and drove him into the wilderness
and forced him into a place
where he had to go through these things
and Jesus had to become obedient, right?
And he did, right?
Jesus had to become obedient even unto death,
even the death of the cross, okay?
The Bible says in Philippians
that being found in fashion as a man,
he humbled himself and became obedient unto death,
even the death of the cross.
Jesus had to become obedient.
He had to say, yes, I will go through these things.
When he was driven to that place,
a place that he would not have chosen for himself,
he went through it.
It was the Spirit that drove him there,
but it was also, after he went through those things,
it was that same Spirit that he came back in, right?
He came back into the Galilee in the power of the Spirit.
That's why we don't wanna quench the Spirit in our lives.
We don't wanna grieve the Holy Spirit.
If we live in the Spirit,
let us also walk in the Spirit, the Bible says.
If we're saved and we're sealed by the Spirit of God,
if we have eternal life under the day of our redemption,
if he is the earnest of our inheritance, right?
If we live in the Spirit, well, you know what?
Let us also walk in it.
Let us walk in the Spirit.
Basically what he's saying there is,
if you're saved, act like it, right?
If you're on your way to heaven, start living like it,
is what he's saying.
If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.
Jesus went in the wilderness, he was driven there,
but he came back in the power of the Spirit in the Galilee
and there went out of fame of him
throughout all the region round about
and he taught in their synagogues,
being glorified of all.
So the Bible says in James 1,
my brethren, count it all joy
when you fall into diverse temptations,
knowing this, that the trying of your faith
worketh patience, but let patience have a perfect work
that you may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
Look, if we have to go through things in our lives,
let's go through them.
If we have to go through temptations and trials,
we're gonna have to go through things
that we would not have chosen for ourselves,
go through them, resist the devil,
you'll come out better on the other side.
You'll have patience, experience, hope,
you'll have the power of the Holy Spirit, right?
Because you will have resisted the devil
and he will flee, but only for a season.
So that's just a few things we can learn
about the temptation of Christ tonight
when Jesus was driven in the wilderness.
We see his humanity, the fact that he hungered,
he was weak, at his weakest when this happened,
and that Satan has great power to temptation.
It's not a light thing that he went through.
It wasn't just easy because he was God.
He had to be driven there,
just like he went through the cross,
he became obedient even to the death of the cross.
He sets an example for us in this.
And we need to learn from this
and understand there's things we're gonna have to go through
in our lives that we would not have chosen for ourselves,
but if we go through them,
we're gonna come out the other side even better.
We're gonna have the power
of the Holy Ghost in our lives.
Let's go ahead and close the word of prayer.
Dear Lord, again, thank you for the example
of your son, Lord, and Lord, I pray to help us
to glean many things from the word of God
and Lord, help us to, Lord, be willing
to go through whatever it is that you have for us
in this life, whatever things we must face,
wherever we're driven by the Spirit,
wherever we're led, Lord, that we would go there,
maybe not cheerfully, Lord, but obediently,
and Lord, that we would be willing
to obey the leading of your Spirit,
and Lord, help us to not quench your Spirit,
help us not grieve him, Lord, so that we can be led,
and Lord, help us, like your son,
to resist the devil, or to understand
that we have a great, although he is powerful, Lord,
although he is that old serpent, Lord,
that he is very crafty, Lord, and Lord knows man well,
Lord, that we have a powerful weapon
against him in the word of God.
Lord, that's what your son, that's what Jesus used
when he was tempted, Lord, he used the word of God
to resist the devil.
Lord, help us to do the same, Lord,
help us to be found reading the Bible, memorizing it,
meditating it, and Lord, most of all,
putting it into practice in our lives
no matter where that might lead us.
We ask these things in Christ's name, amen.
All right, we'll go ahead and sing one more song
with you before we are dismissed this evening.
Sir, it's the song number 146.
It's the song number 146, a shelter in the time of story.
["Shelter in the Time of Story"]
The new world of God, where ever we find
a shelter in the time of story,
Jesus, the Lord of all things,
shelter in the time of story,
through the whole things that are around me
where I am, in the way that I am,
in the way that I am,
shelter in the time of story,
the shame that I make in my life,
shelter in the time of story,
Jesus, the Lord of all things,
shelter in the time of story,
Jesus, the Lord of all things,
the shame that I make in my life,
Jesus, the Lord of all things,
shelter in the time of story,
the shame that I make in my life,
the shelter in the time of story,
the shame that I make in my life,
Jesus, the Lord of all things,
the shame that I make in my life,
Oh, Jesus is the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one,
the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one,
the one, the one, the one, the one, the one.
The one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one,
the one, the one, the one.
The one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one,
the one, the one, the one.
The one, the one.