In this compelling episode, Pastor Jack Hibbs explores the nature of temptation, illustrating how it serves as a test that refines our faith. Learn about the role of temptation in developing spiritual character and the power bestowed upon believers to overcome it. Pastor Jack engages listeners with practical wisdom, urging them to recognize the sources of temptation and God’s ultimate design in allowing these tests to strengthen our resolve and faith in God.
I don’t care what you’re fighting, what you’re struggling with. You go home, you turn on a worship album, and you begin to mouth those songs, and you sing those songs unto God, you know what will happen? Your heart begins to get lifted up. I can’t explain it, it just happens. Your heart gets lifted up, you get excited, you wind up walking in victory and sensing the presence of God.
SPEAKER 02 :
This is Real Life. Welcome to Real Life Radio with Pastor Jack Hibbs. I’m David Jay, thanking you for joining us today as we listen, learn, and are challenged by God’s Word, the Bible. What if today was the day that Jesus returned? Well, that’s the life-changing perspective explored in One Day Nearer by Steve Miller. And it’s this month’s featured resource from Pastor Jack. Now, this inspiring book helps you focus on the hope that Jesus is returning. And this book offers practical encouragement to live each day with faith, purpose, and joy. One Day Nearer by Steve Miller, available for a gift of any amount at jackhibbs.com slash real radio. That’s jackhibbs.com slash real radio. On today’s edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack now continues his series called The Book of James with a message titled, Why Am I Being Tempted? See, before it became one of the books of the New Testament, James was simply a letter sent to those Jews who chose to follow Christ. But as new believers, they really struggled with temptation. You see, the devil’s desire is to speak lies to us using temptation, but it’s the Lord’s desire to help us to overcome temptation and give to us the crown of life, which, by the way, he’s promised to those who love him. so today pastor jack teaches that temptation is one of the most confusing areas in the christian life why are we being tempted well it’s because god is using those things of life to develop a spiritual depth of character within us now with his message called why am i being tempted here’s pastor and bible teacher jack hibbs why am i being tempted
SPEAKER 01 :
Why are you being tempted? A lot of us ask that question, Lord, why? You know, I remember being shocked coming to Christ, giving my heart to Jesus Christ, and then going home and the next morning waking up and finding out real quickly that I still had sin operating in my life. I thought if I’d given my heart to Jesus that all that would go away and I’d be fine. But that’s not exactly the case. One of the great signs of being a Christian is that you become keenly aware of the fact that we are sinners, that we have this sin nature. In fact, a true believer in Jesus Christ experiences one tremendous thing unlike any other experience that we had previously, and that is we hate when we blow it, we hate when we do wrong. In fact, that is, again, a great mark of the believer. You may not be raising people from the dead, you may not be leading thousands of people to Christ, but the fact is, we know that we are children of God because the Holy Spirit dwells inside of us. And the proof to the pudding is that the Holy Spirit who dwells in us no longer will allow us to parade and traffic in sin. He warns us, he rebukes us, he encourages us, he strengthens us. And in fact, we agree with him. There’s this weird thing called temptation. And this thing about temptation is that we willfully, we do, you and I, we willfully from time to time yield to it. And we ought not to be doing that. But God gives us the power to overcome temptation. And James is going to be speaking to us about this thing about being tempted. And we all go through it. Why am I being tempted? James chapter 1, beginning at verse 12. “‘Blessed is the man who endures temptation.'” For when he has been proved, he will receive the crown of life, which the Lord… as promised to those who love him. Let no one say when he is tempted, I’m tempted by God. For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then when desire has conceived, it brings forth sin. And sin, when it is full grown, brings forth death. Why am I being tempted? The purpose of a test, you ought to jot this down. In chapters 1, verse 1 to verse 11, the purpose of test is to really refine our faith in Christ and to cause us to excel in our Christianity. We need them to grow. But now we come to this thing in chapter 1, verses 12 through 18, actually. Regarding the source of temptation, we are tested, verses 1 through 11, and now in verses 12 to 18, we have temptations, and where do these temptations come from? We need to recognize the source. Do you remember, or are you too young, of a program called, I think it was called Laugh-In. Remember Laugh-In? Who remembers Laugh-In? Raise your hand. Just for fun. Who doesn’t remember Laugh-In? Raise your hand. The children’s ministry is across the street right now. There was this thing in there where a guy by the name of Flip Wilson, remember him? He’d come out and he’d go, well, the devil made me do it. He would do this thing really cute and he would say, the devil made me do it. He would be talking about something he got into. Then he’d throw his hand on his hip and he would say, well, the devil made me do it. And, you know, the devil can entice you to do things, but the devil cannot make you do anything. Now, that should bring, I don’t know about you, but that brings a big sigh of relief into my heart. He can’t make you do a thing. A lot of Christians walk around saying, oh, man, I’m just absolutely getting thrashed, man, by the devil. I can’t stop sinning. Oh, hey, the devil can only point to the place of fulfillment of your passion and of your desires. You’ve got to go over there and take a drink of it. Satan parades around, but we are the ones who yield. And so we need to be careful about that. In 2 Corinthians 2.11, the Bible says, Beware lest Satan should take advantage of us, for we are not ignorant of his devices. And we need to be wise. Again, I’ve said this before, but we need to repeat it again. There are certain areas where the church is ignorant of, and I find it extremely interesting that there are these certain areas that the Bible warns us not to be ignorant of. And of course, one of them is prophecy. And the church doesn’t want to hear about prophecy. And the Bible commands us to know it. But the church says, no, I don’t want to know that. I’d rather bury my head in the sand and be surprised from moment to moment and not know what to do. Then the Bible says to know everything we can about spiritual gifts. But what does the church do? Bury its head in the sand again because spiritual gifts are spooky. We could get into trouble. I’ve seen them abused. So the Bible says, don’t be ignorant about them. Know them and operate in them. Find out which ones are yours. The Bible warns us to not be ignorant also about the devices of Satan, Satan’s tricks. And we are in fact a people, a church, I don’t mean this particular church, I mean the church by and large, ignorant of Satan’s attacks and Satan’s devices. But the Bible tells us that we need to be aware of them. We need to be asking the question, why am I being tempted? It’s by virtue of temptation that people yield to that Christians find themselves in perilous situations. Even at this hour, there are people who are away from Christ. They may be drinking, they may be doing drugs, they may be in sexual affairs, or they may be in brawling-type lifestyles now, fighting and arguing, or whatever the case might be. How does this happen? It all comes through this thing of yielding to temptation. It’s very dangerous. But the Bible has warned us over and over again. We need to realize about why are we being tempted and why am I tempted? Because you and I live really in between two incredible worlds. If I can put it to you in a real simple way, look at this podium, this pulpit right now. Let’s say you are right in the middle. Okay? And this is your life. And on one side is the kingdom of light and the kingdom of God and the kingdom of love. And on the other side is the kingdom of darkness, the kingdom of Satan, the kingdom of evil. Now, the Bible says that Satan is judged and that he is condemned ultimately to hell. The Bible also says that he’s free to roam about, really actually to be doing God’s bidding, though he would argue with you on that. He thinks he’s doing his own bidding. But Satan’s desire is that now that he has fallen from the presence of God as an anointed angel, he is now in fact a fallen angel. He’s not a demon, but he is in fact a fallen cherub. He’s a very powerful angel. Christian, listen to this. Satan is not the opponent of God. Do you understand that? It is not God versus Satan and whoever wins in the end wins the big deal. That is not what the Bible teaches. Satan is not the opponent of God, nor is God the opponent of Satan. The fact of the matter is the Christian is the opponent of Satan and Satan the Christian’s opponent. Vice versa, back and forth. God is not challenged tonight. You know he’s not challenged. He’s out there going, oh, what’s the score? Check the scoreboard. That’s not God. How can Satan, now that he has fallen, afflict the heart of God? If we’re in the middle and God is of the light and Satan is of the darkness and Satan has his will and God has his will, and by the way, so do you and I, how can Satan afflict the heart of God by controlling or influencing the souls and the lives of those who dwell upon this earth and even the Christian? That’s how he afflicts the heart of God. If he can, first of all, regarding the Christian life, sterilize you as a Christian, Satan gets some sort of satisfaction. And if he can cause you to live and yield to temptation all the time, and he just kind of, so to speak, jerks your chain, and you might be heading out to a prayer meeting, and Satan jerks your chain, and you give up, and you go back, or he plays with you, toys with you, like a cat and a mouse. That’s what Satan would love to do. And that’s what he’s wanting to do. He can afflict God’s heart by sterilizing the Christian with fear and torment and keeping him wrapped up. But also Satan can inflict the heart of God by blinding the eyes of those who do not believe. There’s a real power that’s blinding the heart of those who don’t believe. You and I have family and friends who don’t believe. Why is that the case? Because the Bible says the God of this world, little g, don’t get all excited, the ruler of this age, Satan’s not a god, but the ruler of this age has blinded their eyes so that they cannot come to the truth. And that’s how Satan afflicts the heart of God. by laming, maiming, destroying, crippling, and ultimately taking the life of those in unbelief, and it chagrins the heart of God. When we go out evangelizing, or when we go to prayer meetings, or when we preach the word, or listen, we just did something extremely tormentive to the kingdom of darkness, worship. He hates it. When we worship the Lord God, the kingdom of darkness trembles when that happens. One of the greatest powers that you can exercise as a Christian is go home and turn on a worship tape or a worship album or whatever the deal might be and sing songs to God. Have you ever done it? I challenge you to do it. In fact, if you’re not doing it, you’re really missing out on a big deal. In fact, you’re getting whipped, if you don’t mind me saying so, by the enemy. Because listen, the power that’s available in praise is incredibly great. When you go home, and I don’t care what you’re fighting, what you’re struggling with, you go home, you turn on a worship album. and you begin to mouth those songs, and you sing those songs unto God, you know what will happen? Your heart begins to get lifted up. I can’t explain it, it just happens. Your heart gets lifted up, you get excited, you wind up walking in victory and sensing the presence of God. And I tell you, when you’re walking like that, Satan can come up and tempt you, and you’re going to go… Away with that. See, there’s nothing you can tempt me with that would draw me away from my Jesus. This is just too wonderful. And you might say, well, I’d like to know if such power exists. Oh, it does. And you need to be walking in that power.
SPEAKER 02 :
You’re listening to Real Life with Pastor Jack Hibbs. You know, to hear more episodes and maybe catch up in the series, just go to jackhibbs.com. That’s jackhibbs.com. And for now, let’s get back to our teaching. Once again, here’s Pastor Jack.
SPEAKER 01 :
For those of you who are taking notes this evening, you ought to jot this down. There are three things that come against us by way of temptation. It’s found in 1 John 2.16. For all that is in the world, here it is, number one, the lust of the flesh, number two, the lust of the eyes, and number three, the pride of life is not from the Father, but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it is passing away, but he who does the will of God will live forever. So there are three things that… come against us. The world. The world comes against us. The world system. You can label it whatever you want. Are you trying to lose weight? And, you know, the world system comes along and says, in and out. It’s what a hamburger is all about. And you’re doing great. Father, I’m exercising control. I’m standing in the liberty that Christ has set me free. And I will no longer be ensnared and entangled in the former things. And then that commercial comes on. And what do you do? You find yourself waking up halfway to In-N-Out Burger. You don’t even know how you got there. And you’re tempted. You’re yielding the things of the world. They’re not necessarily evil things. Whatever your case might be, the world system will tempt you. It’s nothing wrong to wear a suit even. What can be wrong about a suit? Nothing’s wrong about a suit until you get into this fetish of having to buy a new suit for every day of the week, and you’ve got to have a color under the rainbow for every outing, for everything, and you’re obsessed with clothing. Clothing’s not bad. It’s good. But you can be obsessed with it. Then it becomes sin. That’s the world system. Then there’s this thing about… the lust of the eyes and the lust of the eyes is I’ve got to have what they’ve got I’ve got to have the other thing I want I want I want rather than this is what I need and we get drawn away by that and then there’s this thing of the the devil himself of evil that we get tempted by the devil yes he can tempt so the temptations come from the devil and from the flesh and from the world The Bible says in Galatians 5, 16, I say then walk in the spirit and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. But what does it mean to walk in the spirit? The Bible tells us in the book of Romans that to walk in the spirit is to walk in the word of God, to know God’s will for your life. The early church struggled with that. They didn’t know because most of them were Jewish. They were wondering, well, should all the Gentiles be circumcised too like us? And then the council got together in Jerusalem and Paul was there to speak and the others. And they said, no, it is not circumcision that makes them righteous, but they are to abstain from things strangled. I said, well, what’s that all about? Well, that’s what the scriptures talked about, that they shouldn’t be eating things that hadn’t been bloodlet, you should let the blood out of them for your own health and safety. And plus for the Jewish minds, a great stumbling thing. Gentiles, they’re eating blood sausage, blood pudding, blood bagels, blood milkshakes. And the Jews were going, this is sick. And also they said, listen, stay away from things like sexual immorality. And well, everybody could agree with that. And that was fine. Very important. Simple things. Things of the flesh. Pull us away from God. But remember this, as we get into this now, chapter 1, verse 12, that Jesus himself was tempted. You ought to write that down. That is encouraging. Jesus was tempted. In Matthew chapter 4, verses 1 through 3, the Bible says, Then Jesus was led by the Spirit of God into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. What kind of a deal is that? Jesus gets baptized in the Holy Spirit, drives him into the wilderness, sends Jesus out into the wilderness at the advent of his public ministry, and there the Bible says Satan is to tempt him. The Bible says after 40 days, Satan came and said… and study your Bible carefully. He didn’t say if you are the son of God. It’s since you are the son of God. Hey, you’re the son of God. Turn these stones to bread. Don’t you think that sounded kind of good to Jesus at that time? 40 days of fasting. I wouldn’t have even waited to turn the rocks into bread. I would have eaten the rocks. Turn these rocks into bread. Turn these rocks into bread. And that miracle would not normally be bad, would it? It wouldn’t be bad at all. It wouldn’t be bad. It’s not bad to turn rocks into bread. It’s not bad. It’s bad when Satan says do it. But it’s a good thing. Not when Satan says to do it. People, listen up. You can be focused on a good thing, but be hearing the wrong voice and get really messed up. And I’ve been there. See a good cause? Oh, let’s go for it. Man, that’s good. Come and follow me. And off into the ditch we go. Good thing, wrong voice speaking. We have to be very careful. Peter, saying this, These things, really good things, at one moment, then turns and says to Jesus, I rebuke you. Oh, this is all wrong. And Jesus turns and says to Peter, looking right past Peter, the Lord rebukes you, Satan. Can you imagine Jesus looking at you and saying, the Lord rebukes you. I rebuke you, Satan. I would look behind me and hope to see some horned creature behind me. You’re pointing at me. Man, we can go from one moment of glory to the next moment of catastrophe because we’re listening to the wrong voice. So the first thing we need to see, why am I being tempted, is in verse 12, and that is this. And boy, do we need to hear this. Why are we being tempted? Because this, there’s a victorious condition for those who endure temptation. That’s why you’re being tempted. That’s why you’re going to be tempted tonight or tomorrow. Oh, you’re going to be tempted. Why? Because there’s a victorious condition that God wants us to have for those who endure. Listen to what he says. He says, verse 12, blessed is the man who endures temptation for when he has been proved, he will receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to those who love him. So the first thing we need to realize concerning this victorious condition is that blessed is the man who endures temptation. The word blessed is the word that you all know about already. It means happy. It means super blessed. The Greek word means well-off. That cracks me up because somebody, we so often use that word. Well, is he well-off? Are they well-off? Oh, let’s drive to Hollywood or to Newport. They’re well-off. But you would never say, man, is that guy under temptation? Look at him. He’s well-off. But that’s what the Bible says. Are you being tempted? Yes. The Bible says you’re well off. You’re super blessed. Well, I don’t feel blessed. I’m struggling under a temptation. Oh, yes. That’s why we’re coming to the word endures. The Christian who is tempted finds himself in a victorious place. of enduring. Why is that so good? Because God will manifest his presence when we endure. Listen, if we yield from one temptation to another, we’ll never know God’s presence. We’ll never know the growth of the spirit. We will be led like a ox to the slaughter. We’ll never know anything at all. But if we make a stand, God’s power comes in. We stand on the word of God. We’re praying. We’re singing praises. We’re in fellowship. We’re in the word of God. And God shores us up. Many times, though, the Christian crumbles before God gets his tools there and his cement and his wheelbarrows to shore up the wall. We give in. Oh, my gosh. I’m being tempted. Bye, everyone. Stop. You don’t have to yield to temptation. By the way, again, Satan is not dragging you away to temptation. You are yourself. I am myself. He can only dangle the goods in front of us. We’re the ones that go, gimme, gimme, gimme that. He can only tempt. And by the way, being tempted is not a sin. Did you know that? It’s not a sin. It’s not a sin to be tempted. You might say, well, great, I’m gonna go down to Joe’s Topless Bar and Grill and stand there knowing now that it’s not a sin to be tempted. I’m persuaded of better things concerning all of you. You don’t do that.
SPEAKER 02 :
pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs, here on Real Life Radio with his message called, Why Am I Being Tempted? You know, this message, by the way, is part of Pastor Jack’s series called The Book of James. It’s a series on being doers of the Word of God and not just hearers only. And we’ll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio. If your kid or your grandkid is in a season of doubt about God, What would you do? Let’s say he’s a young, let’s say he’s eight years old and he’s kind of thinking about God and doubting God.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah. Well, first of all, Lisa and I have raised our kids and now it’s the grandkids. So I know that question. What we do, believe it or not, what we’ve done, what we do is take them outside. And if this is appropriate, dependent upon the weather, have them lick their finger, right? Put their finger in their mouth, get it wet, stick their finger up in the air and ask your kid, what side is your finger cooler on? Or what do you feel? I feel the wind blowing. How do you know that? I can feel it. Look at the trees. What’s happening? The leaves are moving. Well, how do you know the leaves are moving? Look at them. The leaves are moving. So, hey, buddy, but what’s moving the trees? Wind? No, you got to do better than that. What’s wind? Get them to think. You can’t give them the answer. That doesn’t build faith. Show them how to think critically to come to a conclusion. They see a tree moving. They feel the finger cool on one side that the wind is blowing on, and yet they cannot see the wind because their eyes are not capable of seeing molecules and millibars in the atmosphere. Right. but they see the effect of it. So the same is true about God. Right now, we’re not in heaven yet. In heaven, we get our heaven eyeballs. We’ll be able to see him. Right now we can’t, but we see his evidence everywhere. So when you see the ocean moving, he said in the Bible, by the way, I’m going to move the ocean. I’m going to move the seas with the swells. And by the way, he says in the book of Job, I’m going to draw a line at the shore where these mighty waves cannot go past. Right? Take your kid down to the lake or down to the beach and show them this is evidence of God. So that’s going to start to dispel doubt. But we must never, ever allow doubt to go unanswered. That’s a recipe for disaster.
SPEAKER 02 :
This program is made possible by the generous contributions of you, our listeners. Visit us at jackhibbs.com. That’s jackhibbs.com. Until next time, Pastor Jack Hibbs and all of us here at Real Life Radio wish for you solid and steady growth in Christ and in His Word. We’ll see you next time here on Real Life Radio.
