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Discerning the Difference Between The World, The Flesh, and Satan In Temptation
112 Plays2 years ago
In this episode, Dan Sanchez talks to Ridley Barron about the three enemies all Christians face, the World. the flesh, and Satan when it comes to facing temptation.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast Series
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome to the Grove Hill podcast. I'm Dan Sanchez and I'm joined by our pastor Ridley Barron to try out a new series we have going on here because oftentimes Ridley drops a awesome sermon on Sunday morning, but I know as somebody who's
00:00:16
Speaker
taught about things that I talk about like marketing and business and stuff that there's always things left on the cutting room floor. There's always stories he couldn't share extra goodness that he didn't they had to clip and leave out of it. So we wanted to try a new format here to sneak in between sermons to kind of go deeper on some subjects within the sermon.
00:00:36
Speaker
or
Exploring 'The Truth About Temptation' Sermon
00:00:37
Speaker
bring back some of those stories, illustrations, verses that didn't quite make it into the sermon for our edification so we can go deeper into the message together. Today, I wanted to start off with the latest sermon that just got published before this episode. If you haven't checked it out, go back and listen to it. It's the truth about temptation, and we dove into the story
00:01:00
Speaker
uh from the book of genesis around joseph fleeing from potter for his wife or as ridley called mrs potter for since we don't have a name for her um and we kind of unpacked the topic a sub a part of the topic of the sermon was around resisting temptation and our three enemies that we face the world
00:01:21
Speaker
Satan and our own flesh. So Ridley, I wanted to throw it over to you to kind of like unpack a little bit or summarize a little bit what we talked about in the sermon this Sunday regarding those three enemies and temptation. Yeah, absolutely. You know, the framework for that thinking comes from Paul's letter, Ephesians chapter two, where he talks about the world, the flesh, and of course, Satan himself.
00:01:45
Speaker
And I think it's kind of like a military kind of thinking that Paul's addressing there. He's saying, you got to know your enemy in order to address your enemy. And so for many of us as believers, we oversimplify the challenges we have with temptation and sin. And I think that's what kind of leads us to this place where we are endangering ourselves almost because we start off behind the eight ball because we really don't know what it is we're dealing with.
00:02:12
Speaker
And so one of the things you want to try to encourage believers as they grow is to recognize the enemy, which gives you a better ability to understand how to fight that enemy. And so that's kind of what Paul does. He kind of lays it out there for us and says, here's what you're dealing with. This is what you're going to be facing as you do this journey to follow after Jesus Christ.
00:02:31
Speaker
So it's funny, when I
Can One Overprepare for Resisting Temptation?
00:02:32
Speaker
think about Paul writing about military, I also think about like the fact that he says like, I buffet my body and make it my slave. He goes through this rigorous process of like holding strong, right? Because there's so many things coming against us. Do you think there's, can we go overboard in this and preparing and understanding the enemy and trying to resist temptation? Or is it kind of like, should we be going like full bore into, I don't know, going to war here, going to battle?
00:03:00
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think you can. I mean, I feel like if we were going too far with it, then we would probably see more morality in our world and more ethics in our world. I think if anything, we're probably not taking it seriously enough.
00:03:13
Speaker
We kind of scoff it off. We make jokes about the enemy. We make jokes about things that we face. We scoff at the idea that there even really is a personal enemy. But the Bible is very clear, and Jesus spent a great time talking about this, that there is a real enemy, a real person, a being, if you will, that desires to destroy us. And so multiple places in scripture, the most famous probably being John chapter 10, where he says, the enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy you.
00:03:43
Speaker
So make no mistake about it. The devil has no real good intention for your life and he wants to do everything he can to destroy you. So
Practical Examples of Temptation
00:03:51
Speaker
let's break down the three enemies practically. What does it commonly look like for the world, for Satan, and for the flesh? Because I feel like if we can learn to discern the three, we'll probably be more successful in resisting them.
00:04:07
Speaker
Yeah, so the world, I would say a good definition of the world would be an indifference to God's plan and scheme for humanity. So in other words, just this idea that we don't consider God's plan, we don't consider God's ethics, we don't consider God's morals. In fact, many of us in this world today don't even consider that there is a God.
00:04:32
Speaker
And so because of that, the world's values take over a lot of our way of thinking and how we behave, how we act. The flesh, of course, comes down to inner desires, some of those legitimate desires, but somehow we let those desires to control us rather than us controlling them. And then
00:04:51
Speaker
of course, the enemy himself. The enemy who not only wants to see us destroyed, but he wants us to see destroyed for a greater purpose, which is to draw glory away from God, to undermine his plan for us. And so the three
Satan's Influence and Spiritual Forces
00:05:05
Speaker
fit nicely and neatly together. And I think the first place in the New Testament, at least, that we see this come to play, where we see it shown, is when Jesus is taken out into the wilderness.
00:05:18
Speaker
Shortly after he's baptized by John the Baptist, it says he went into the wilderness for 40 days of fasting and prayer. And at the end of that time, Satan came to him and he challenged him in literally all three of these areas. And those challenges were kind of first sampling of Jesus going, okay, I will do battle against these things and you will likewise be challenged in all three of these areas as you walk after me.
00:05:43
Speaker
So tell me a little bit more about like the about Satan and the principalities Paul talks about.
00:05:49
Speaker
Now Jesus, he was going straight up against like probably the man himself, like Lucifer, the dark, the, the, the angel. Yes. Um, but most of us probably aren't going mano a mano with Satan himself. It's probably a demon, right? Satan is probably the big gun. He comes, he comes against the big guys like the Billy Grahams and Paul the apostles. So, you know, that would be the ones you would think he would go after, but
00:06:15
Speaker
He obviously has legions of minions who follow after him. The book of Revelation gives us an indication that they might have been a third of the angels who are in heaven that were wiped out with him after his rebellion. We don't know exact numbers. Nobody has a clue what that looks like. Lots of speculation, both from the side of Christianity, as well as this curiosity from the world about this whole idea that gets played out in entertainment, media, and things like that.
00:06:42
Speaker
But yes, demons are real, just like the enemy Satan himself is real. And I believe that, again, the first indication that we were up against a formidable enemy was in the Garden of Eden itself when God described the serpent and said he was the most cunning of all the creatures. And so right away, it's like God is saying, you know, pay close attention to this one. He's going to come back around. No
Discerning the Source of Temptation
00:07:06
Speaker
pun intended. He's going to come back around to bite you over and over and over again, you know.
00:07:12
Speaker
It's funny in my life group after that Sunday afternoon. So not long after the sermon, we were discussing like the difference between the flesh and Satan and how to know one from the other. And we got into a friendly debate in the life group of like, well, Satan's not around too often or he's around all the time. It's like every time we're tempted, it's, it's, it's the devil, you know? And I thought it was a fun debate because it's kind of like, well, like
00:07:38
Speaker
It's not always clear what we're running into, why we're leaning towards sin, what's affecting us. How do you discern between the three, knowing we're in a fallen world, we have a fallen sinful nature and an enemy lurking around, probably pulling on the strings of both all the time, making one worse or like making them come against us. So how do you discern as a believer, like the three things, if it's one or the other or a combination of the three?
00:08:06
Speaker
Well, and I'm glad you added that last part because I would argue in many cases that quite often it is a combination. Let's face it, we live in a world and we're constantly immersed in this world. And it's really hard even to pull ourselves out of this world no matter how much we try to follow and replicate what Christ has done. So
00:08:26
Speaker
The world's values are all around us. As parents, you know, you may try to raise your children in a wholesome home with good values and that kind of stuff. And the next thing you know, you hear them saying a word that you've never spoken and you're going, where did you hear that? Well, it's because the world is teaching our kids all the time. The flesh, I mean, again, we talked about this earlier, but there are some natural innate desires that have been put in us by God that are good.
00:08:52
Speaker
but when they are put out of priority, then suddenly the flesh becomes an enemy. We become enemies of ourselves and those desires can take over and consume us, can mess up our priorities and get our focus off of what God desires for us. And so, you
Common Temptations and Scriptural Guidance
00:09:09
Speaker
know, a great example of that is the flesh, literally the flesh, the sexual side of us is one of those areas where the world's values and the flesh constantly meet. And many times we will,
00:09:22
Speaker
We'll experience temptation through this huge depth of our souls. And it's because we've got two enemies coming at us at one time. And I would argue sometimes maybe even all three of them, because you know that a demon, if he's worth his salt, isn't going to miss a good opportunity to jump on and pile on in those situations. So as far as discernment is concerned, I think there's two areas that kind of link hands there for me. One of them obviously is being in the word itself.
00:09:48
Speaker
That's always going to be a basic answer you come back to in Christianity because this word is such a valuable book to us. Not only does it give us lessons for life, but it also gives us warnings for life. And so I think the book itself, the Bible gives us great guidelines about how to determine what part of our soul is being under attack and what is the cause of that. I think also that the thing that goes hand in hand with it is a constant conversation that you have with God and so that the Holy Spirit is guiding you through those encounters.
00:10:19
Speaker
And, and for me, I would argue is probably the first best step after you've come under some kind of temptation, some kind of attack to immediately go right back to Jesus himself to say, this is yours. I need you to handle this because I can't. Um, and that's, you know, when those tracks we fall into, we always think we got it. We, you know, I got this, I can handle this. And next thing you know, we're laying fast face down on the ground and bloody nose and, and Satan's done his thing to us, you know? What are some common temptations?
00:10:49
Speaker
that a lot of us are struggling with that the Bible has really clear guidance for. I would argue that probably the greatest one is sexuality itself. Sexuality permeates so much of our society. It even starts here in America, at least today, very young age with that whole idea of sexual identity.
00:11:12
Speaker
Um, become a real, real, you know, catchphrase in our schools and our public and the media. Uh, even some of the entertainment moguls we used to trust our kids with have now turned their attention that direction, Disney being one of the biggest ones. Um, so it's a conversation that has been, you know, over and over again, just kind of beaten to death. I even actually talked with a pastor in Argentina just this past week.
00:11:37
Speaker
I was asking him, I said, what are some of the things your teenagers there struggle with? And he immediately mentioned sexual identity. So it's not just here in the United States, it's everywhere. We see that kind of thing. So sexuality is one of those things. I think popularity is another one. Everybody has this desire to be loved, to be acknowledged, to be recognized. That's why the phrase that's become so popular in our country, I see you, you're valued, this becomes such a big thing.
00:12:03
Speaker
And there's nothing wrong with that on the surface, but then the question comes back to how are we seeking that acknowledgement and who do we seek it from? Of course, the Bible is very clear. Your identity has been established by Jesus Christ. You are a son or a daughter of God. And when you go back
Satan's Role in Planting Doubts
00:12:20
Speaker
to Him as the source of your identity,
00:12:22
Speaker
Not only do you have the love and affection and kindness that you seek, but then you also have the surety that you can go out and have relationships everywhere else and not have to seek that from those those human beings who can't very well feel you that way. So I think that's really, really important. But the Bible also teaches us in those relationships that you got to be very careful in establishing relationships that
00:12:45
Speaker
compromise will never pay off in the end. It usually winds up costing you more than you really want to pay for that relationship. You know some other areas I think the Bible in most churches we don't like to talk about this one. Gluttony is a huge issue that we face. Just sat downstairs one of our life groups just brought us a great lunch here to staff today to bless us for
00:13:08
Speaker
Pastor Appreciation Week, and I'm sitting there having to push the plate back. I'm thinking, man, this is good food and I could eat a lot of it, but it just wouldn't be right. We have selfish desires. The Bible tells us not to be selfish, but to love others more than we love ourselves, to seek God first in his kingdom, not our own. So I think the Bible really covers a whole lot of ground for us.
00:13:32
Speaker
Again, I think our weakness is that we have such an ignorance of the Bible and what it tries to teach us and how it tries to warn us about these very real enemies in our life.
00:13:41
Speaker
So let's come back to sexual sin, because I think that's just a clear one. Even non-Christians know that Christians are against sexual sin and fornication, right? Yes. The fancy word for sex outside of marriage. Right. Christianity is just known for this one. Yes, it is. You can see clearly the three, or at least I can see two of the three areas of temptation coming against you, like the world. Like you said, Disney and the movies and the entertainment is just constantly around you, reminding you.
00:14:11
Speaker
Of what you could have if you could just take a bite of this apple called sexual sin. Yes, right. Yes, and of course it's It's fairly evident to most kind of like your own flesh like wanting to give into it because your own Just biological desires playing against you for it, right? Um, and our own our own flesh working against us drawing us towards it Where would you say satan fits in the middle of that? Um
00:14:38
Speaker
You know, that's an interesting question. I think Satan, because of his close connection to God from the very beginning of time as one of his original messengers, I think it's always been very clear to him what God's plan was. And you know, if you read the Bible carefully, you see literally from the very beginning of creation, Satan was there in the garden. He was observing, at least from a close distance.
00:15:01
Speaker
was observing what was going on, the interactions between God and man. And so when God comes to Adam, his first assignment he gives Adam and Eve is be fruitful and multiply.
Balancing Satan's Influence with Personal Responsibility
00:15:11
Speaker
And it's almost like instantly Satan being who he is goes, okay, how can I mess this up for them? How can I make this go off the road and derail this in such a way that God doesn't get glory and mankind doesn't get what it needs out of this? And so instantly,
00:15:28
Speaker
Instantly, Satan comes to Eve and says, did God really say and begins that questioning process? And so literally what we're dealing with here, you know, thousands of years later is the same question. Did God really mean you shouldn't have sex outside of marriage? I mean, is that really the kind of God we want to serve?
00:15:45
Speaker
He's such a spoilsport. What's the purpose of that? Any inkling of doubt that Satan can plant as a seed in our minds, I think makes him a little bit closer to his goal of success and derail in our relationship with God. Reminds me of a fun book. It's a hard read, but it's still a fun book to read slowly is The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, which is
00:16:09
Speaker
I don't know what to call that book. It's not satire. I guess it is satire. It really is. It's a fictional book and it's literally letters from a professional demon called Screwtape to his novice nephew. Yes. And he's walking wormwood, his nephew, through how to better tempt his subject human.
00:16:29
Speaker
He's like, oh, this is how you can subtly influence his thinking into thinking the way our father, and they're speaking our father as in Satan, because it's his army, into influencing his thinking. Just like what you said there with Satan there in the beginning, always offering thoughts.
00:16:50
Speaker
offering essentially lies, sometimes more sophisticated lies because they're based on truths, but still manipulated, is kind of Satan and the demonic realm's influence over us, always kind of like offering, did God say that? Isn't it right?
00:17:06
Speaker
Isn't love just love? Yes. Right? A common phrase that's entered all of our minds from the world now. I feel like as a smart one, Satan's planted. Isn't love just love? Can't we just love and be merry? Forget holding yourself for marriage. Right. I almost feel like Satan's still playing the same game. Absolutely. Offering lies and just sewing them across the board through the world, but also individually to each person.
00:17:35
Speaker
So you fast forward a few thousand years later from the Garden of Eden until Jesus is here on the earth and he's teaching his disciples. And he says, let me tell you about your opponent. His name is Satan. He is a liar and he's the father of all lies. So every lie emanates from this character. And so to your point, that's exactly what he does. He's constantly bringing that little bit of doubt, that little bit of questioning into our mind. And that doesn't mean that all questions are bad. It just means that when you take a
00:18:04
Speaker
question, you have a question, you take it back to God for the source because he's the source of all truth. And even in our group, we visited a life group Sunday, we at least in our presently, you know, visit around to different groups and
00:18:16
Speaker
church. And we were at one Sunday night and had a great conversation about how even the lies of Satan have begun to filter into the church in such a way now that we dress them up, we make them look really nice. But what it is, it's literally us backing off of the truth of God in order to accommodate the world around us. So again, there's a picture of Satan's the source of that problem.
00:18:38
Speaker
He puts lies in front of us so that we can accommodate a world thinking, a world view that's not lined up with God. And the reason we adapt to that is because our flesh tells us we need these relationships to be this way. And so again, it's like he's almost handing it off down the line. All three of us working together against those who call themselves sons and daughters of God.
00:19:00
Speaker
Now, there's a scenario I've run into a few times with other believers, even sometimes myself in my past, where you can lean, I think, too heavily on almost blaming everything on Satan. Oh yeah. You mentioned this in the sermon, like the devil made me do it, right? Right, right.
00:19:17
Speaker
At the and now I probably lean a little bit too far towards the other side being like dude. It's that's all you That's all you just get up stop sinning right, you know right on your pants. Yes do this thing, you know But at the same time, where do you find the balance between the two is we know there's outside influence in the world We know
Scripture as a Tool Against Temptation
00:19:35
Speaker
there's Satan, but at the same time there's like this You have control so stop doing it or I don't I don't know that's kind of where I'm at now What do you think about that?
00:19:44
Speaker
Gosh, you know, that's a hard question, Dan. I think it's a great question. I think it's one we all have to deal with. Where do we draw the line between our own ignorance, our own stupidity, our own bad choices versus a Satan who nudges us towards those things? And I would say, quite frankly, if it's a repetitive sin, if it's something that we keep coming back to, I have to chalk it up to stupidity. You know, it's kind of like the old saying, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.
00:20:13
Speaker
So maybe the first time Satan's the one who lures us there with tricks and traps and those kinds of things. But if we keep falling prey to the same old thing over and over again, it's a combination of being unwilling to do anything about it, a laziness in our spiritual growth and discernment and discipline, and an ignorance of why the problem is existing in the first place. And I think what many Christians unfortunately
00:20:42
Speaker
tend to do or choose to do is they bury their head in the sand and hope it'll just go away. As we've been talking, I've been trying to figure out a way to simplify, and I'm going to come up with the hypothesis here. You'll have to tell me if it's too simplified between the flesh, the world, and the spiritual principalities, aka Satan.
00:21:04
Speaker
Right almost feel like the world is essentially the outside influence influence is affecting us But the other two are inside almost feel like the flesh or is generally going to be your emotions or bodily Like your your emotions or your body like wanted to go in a sinful direction, right? But the Satan is really going to be like the lies that you're listening to for justification. It's the logic when your logic wants to go in a sinful direction and
00:21:33
Speaker
Is that the flesh or is that Satan or you believing Satan? I'm trying to figure out like, is the thinking behind sin always Satan versus the flesh? Yeah, I really like where you're going with this hypothesis and I think you're right. I think that's a good way maybe even to help with the discernment from what's coming with inside. It may be that your brain is just following what Satan has planted there, you know?
00:21:55
Speaker
Again, to use the fishing analogy that James kind of uses in chapter one of James, where he talks about it luring you in and enticing you. You know, Satan, Satan wiggles the little shiny thing. We pursue it. And so, yeah, it's our flesh, I think, in those situations. And, you know, you keep mentioning that word principalities. Let's be reminded that this is an ongoing 24 hour day, seven, seven day a week kind of thing that we are dealing with.
00:22:23
Speaker
There's no time schedule in which Satan operates. There's no time schedule. The world never shuts down and closes the doors. And of course our flesh is going every time we're awake and maybe even arguably while we're asleep. So this is another reason why we so drastically need the intervention of the Holy Spirit in our life and God to work on our behalf. Cause we just can't possibly battle this thing 24 hours a day. Well, as we wrap this up, is there anything,
00:22:52
Speaker
we should leave the audience here with how we should respond to each as we think about how we get caught in sin by listening to the lies, feeling the impulses of our flesh and hearing the world. Like how do we respond to each of these things or all together? A couple of things I would say, first of all, let me encourage people. Temptation is not sin.
00:23:19
Speaker
OK, everybody is tempted. Jesus was tempted and still he had no sin. So sometimes I think Satan even uses temptation, even though we successfully withstand it, he uses it to beat us down and shame us, which that's obviously not of God. So be very careful to different. I can't say the word different differentiate. There's the word differentiate between the temptation to sin and giving in to sin.
00:23:48
Speaker
But I would say, again, going back to the Bible, the Bible gives us this incredible knowledge that enables us to withstand in all those areas. First of all, the Bible tells us very clearly how Satan works. So we're very aware of this enemy. We know he exists. We know he has
00:24:06
Speaker
minions who help him that are demons that are all over the place. We know that he's at war around us. We know what his desires are for us. So that helps us out. When it comes to the flesh, the Bible tells us how to deal with the flesh and what God's desires for the flesh are.
00:24:21
Speaker
Not that the flesh is ever bad, but what we do with that flesh is. It's how we treat those desires and those impulses inside of us. Do we give them to God and let him use them? Do we use them within the framework of the way God created mankind? Or do we choose to satisfy ourselves and even gorge ourselves on things for the flesh? And then of course the world, the Bible is absolutely the best tool for insulating you and your family against the world. And I would argue that
00:24:50
Speaker
probably the single most important conversation that you could have with your children growing up is helping them to develop and understand a biblical worldview. Give them those foundations that they can build on for the rest of their lives. Help them to understand that there is a God and that God has a purpose for their lives, that he has an identity for them that he wants them to fulfill. All of those things help to build the solid wall around the heart of our children and our wives
00:25:18
Speaker
ourselves so that we can be the kind of people God wants us to be and not let that world influence take us down the path we don't want to go. Fantastic. Man, I've learned a lot just by unpacking this a little bit and having a conversation about it. Been fun. Next week, we'll try this again and see how it goes based on the sermon. All right. Thanks, Dan. Appreciate your help with it, man.