Recognizing the Trial of Temptation

2 Peter 1:3

According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:

What a blessing it is to know Him. Knowing Him is knowing God’s will, God’s plan for the human race and more specifically, God’s plan for your life.

Hosea 4:6

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee...

2 Peter 1:4

Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

The more we know Jesus, the more we are called towards glory and virtue:

Glory- focused on the things that belong to God

Virtue- moral excellence

Phillipians 2:13 For it is God that works in you…

The more we know Him, trust Him, grow in Him and die to self, the more we move towards Him and the result of that is escape from the corruption that is in the world through lust.

Galatians 1:4

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:

We understand how the present world become evil and corrupt, and we understand that this world is still evil and corrupt, and there is evil influence all around us.

And there is a struggle that rages in the heart and lives of humans. The lost are hopeless without Christ in the battle of sin, but many believers find themselves in an ongoing spiritual struggle.

Galatians 5:17 the flesh lusts against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh.

The sin’s power is the Law—it’s not about us trying, it’s about our old man dying and believing that what He did was what we need.

The flesh’s power is the evil nature inherited from the fall of Adam. This evil or sinful nature is not eradicated or completely destroyed when we get saved. However, Romans 6 teaches us that our relationship with this evil nature is supposed to be dead.

Shall we continue in sin so grace may abound? 2. God forbid, how can we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?

I used to use an analogy of an old girlfriend. She’s not dead. I’m not dead, but that thing we used to have between us is dead. Im not physically dead. The sinful nature is not completely dead, but that thing that we used to have between us is dead. The relationship is dead in Christ. My “old man” had an intimate relationship with sin and my “new man” has an intimate relationship with Jesus.

Nevertheless, it must be understood that original sin resulted in this current condition of an unclean earth that we share with evil spirits who want to entice us away from God. They want to destroy other people’s souls, and they want to get us so consumed with the cares of the world that we aren’t concerned with God’s kingdom business.

They want us either drowning in sin or sitting on the bench.

The scripture says that we are partakers of the Divine nature

The word for partaker is koinonos. I have talked to you several times about the word Koinonia and how this word describes communion and fellowship. Through our new birth in Christ, the Holy Spirit now lives in us. His Spirit has been made one with our Spirit, and we have become partakers of the nature of God.

We have access to an endless flow of grace that supplies us with supernatural power from God. We can have faith that we can live in victory. Victory in our minds, victory in our bodies. We can have faith in the miracle working power of God. The Holy Spirit is one with us in our spirit and through faith we share in the divine nature of God.

I want to talk to you about temptation because Satan and his unclean spirits want to keep believers in a state of defeat. They don’t want us to gain that knowledge of Christ that leads to God’s divine power that destroys the power of evil over our lives. It’s that simple— faith that Jesus won, results in His victory over sin in my life.

But there is this temptation thing.

James 1:12-15

12 Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him. 13 Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: 14 But every man is tempted, when he is [[drawn away]] of his own lust, and [[enticed]]. 15 Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.

Drawn away and enticed both words are described as one being lured or baited by evil. Specifically using as the analogy of a hunter or fisher in regards to his game or catch.

Rat’s nature cheese/trap

Fish/bait/hook

The bird’s snare

Animals, for the most part are ruled by their nature, their instinct draws them towards the bait and the trap is set. Humans outside of Christ are similar prey for sin. However, in Christ, our spirit’s are made alive to God, and the Spirit of God speaks to us and leads us towards truth.

Matthew 12:43-45

43 -- When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none. 44 Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. 45 Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation.

But we don’t have to yield to the enticements of evil spirits as they attempt to draw sinful tendencies out of us. Instead of yielding to the lies of Satan, we yield to the truth of God’s word, which is that I am a partaker of the divine nature, also that I am no longer the old man enslaved by sin; instead, I am a new man, and like Paul said, “a slave of Christ!”

We have talked a lot about devils jumping on people, whether they can get in this one or that one and what they can do to Christians and what they can’t.  What we need to understand is that they’re real, they’re not our friends and we should not be engaging with them.

They’re trying to stimulate our flesh in order to get us to yield, yielding to sin, opens a door. I’m not saying that if you yield you’re automatically in bondage, what I am definitively saying is that yielding to sin either by trying to live for God through your good works instead of living for God through Jesus’s work, or yielding to a lust in your flesh that was stimulated from an outside unclean spirit, either way, it opens a door, and an open door to evil is no good thing.

Galatians 5:24

And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.

In this manner, the evil spirit never gets a chance to attach or enter…whatever you choose to believe, because the flesh is crucified by faith, the enticement is not yielded to, and the unclean spirit has no legal right because a spiritual door was not opened.

When we belong to Him, and have the knowledge that we share natures with Him, which means that the same cross that crucified Him crucifies our flesh and the same Spirit that raised Him from the dead gives us life, we walk in victory and sin shall not have dominion over you for you are not under law but under grace (Romans 6:14)