Dragged Away and Enticed

There's nothing like a great day of fishing, right?

Sitting in a boat on a large lake or lying on the bank by a fish pond,

a farm pond, watching the clouds, casting a lure after those big lunkers. I enjoy fishing.

I wish that I could do more of it, except not in this cold.

I tried ice fishing once, and I could never get the thing cast into the little hole.

I can never get that to work out But I

also really like earning a salary and putting food on the

table And paying our bills so I don't take

off time as much as I should But I

do enjoy fishing I can sit back and spend the day lazily relaxing on a riverbank

Dreaming about the big one that I'm going to catch Or watching the current of

the stream make those little ripples and whirlpools You kind of are imagining

that in your mind, right?

Or watching the minnows dart in and around the shore at my feet.

But I'm telling you, fishing is not enough. Just fishing is not enough.

I have to have the thrill of landing

fish and taking some home to Nancy to cook up for us for our supper.

Now, mind you, it's customary for some people to fish all day without catching

anything, and they don't seem to mind that at all, but not me.

For me, a few hours of fishing without catching anything can get a little frustrating

because, well, I'm an impatient person.

If they're not biting or not biting regularly or rapidly, I get bored and get bothered.

Three or four casts in one place without a bite, and I'm ready to move to a different spot.

And don't even talk to me about these fishing shows where these people catch

these big, huge crappie.

You've seen them on the reels, big slab crappies 12-14 inches long and throw them back and,

Now, they're just stupid, but there's one thing I've learned from my vast experience

of fishing that's really important to know.

Fish are really stupid, and they're easily fooled.

I don't know why they travel in schools, but because they don't seem to learn much.

They will swim around and watch as one of their buddies succumbs to the lure

of a baited hook and get sucked up by a hungry fisherman, and what do they do?

The Veronique's cast in the very same spot with the very same lure and another

stupid fish goes belly up in a frying pan.

Fish are really stupid.

Have you ever noticed that everything the fish needs is contained in its unique

environment of grass and weed beds,

and yet they are so easily enticed

by the bait on the end of a fisherman's lure or a fisherman's reel?

Fish are just really stupid. Did I say that before?

Okay, anyway, dangle a live night crawler off the edge of a weed bed,

and you bet you'll lure sunfish out of hiding every time.

When we were kids, we used to travel up to Minnesota to my grandma's place for

the one week of vacation that my dad ever took a year.

We'd go up to Minnesota and on Bass Lake and Long Lake and there's another one up there.

Anyway, in central Minnesota, we used to go out and on Long Lake,

there was a huge sandbar submerged in the middle of the lake.

And we'd go to that sandbar and it'd be grown up with grasses and stuff.

And we'd anchor on the edge of that sandbar and just toss our lines next to the sandbar.

And just about every time you'd pull in a sunfish or a bluegill. That was fishing.

Toss a minnow-shaped lure back in under a tree branch in the water.

Don't get it stuck on the branch, but toss it under a branch in the water on

a warm spring day and you're likely to lure a lunker bass out and just hang on to your rod.

Jiggle a chartreuse-colored crappie jig along a deep-water pier in the early

spring and suppers assured.

Squeeze a bunch of stink bait onto a treble hook and let the line go down to

the bottom, and you'll drag in even the most stubborn catfish away from their daredreaming.

Fish are just plain stupid.

Humans would never be that stupid.

I want to read to you from James chapter 1, verses 13 through 18.

James 1:13–18

When tempted, no one should say, God is tempting me, for God cannot be tempted

by evil, nor does he tempt anyone.

But each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed.

Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and sin,

when it is full grown, gives birth to death.

Don't be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift

is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights,

who does not change like shifting shadows.

He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that he might be a kind

of firstfruits of all he created.

So I've learned a lot about temptation from fishing.

This morning, let me share with you some of my vast knowledge of temptation.

Number one, a fisherman does not waste the bait by fishing in the cooler.

The first thing we learn is that he's not going to waste his bait on the live whale in his boat.

Every well-equipped bash boat has a cooler or a live well where fresh water

is pumped in periodically to

keep the fish alive until they can be taken home and cleaned and cooked.

Or it might be simply an ice chest where the fish are preserved until they're cleaned.

This is the place where the fisherman keeps the catch. When a fish has surrendered

to the lure of the bait and has been landed, the fisherman places it in his cooler for a later meal.

There would be no reason for the fisherman to throw another lure into the cooler

because, well, duh, he's already got those fish.

James is writing to Christian Jews scattered throughout the world to be on guard for temptation.

He's not talking to the non-believer. He is talking to the Christian.

So often, people seem to think that because of God's sovereignty,

he is the one who brings everything on us, including temptation.

Job's friends tried to convince Job that it was God who was bringing all the

calamity on him, yet Job knew about what James is teaching to Christians.

God cannot be tempted by evil, nor can he do any evil.

And since God cannot do any evil, he cannot and will not tempt us to do evil.

Since God is good and holy, his only desire is that we would please him by always doing only good.

And since James is writing to believers, it seems understandable that they are

already on God's side and, so to speak, in God's cooler.

That God would have no reason to entice them away from their present situation

because they're already in his presence. So God cannot tempt us with evil. Don't get me wrong.

Scripture also tells us that God allows us to be tempted and does not,

as a matter of fact, prevent it.

Except maybe in those times when he knows that we would be too weak to fight

and when we call upon him to strengthen us.

His desire is that we grow through any temptation.

I'm reminded of a time when I was struggling with some imagery.

You know how men are. We are excited by imagery.

And we were in Peoria, and there was this huge billboard down the road from

us of a scantily clanned woman who was a DJ for the radio station.

I have no idea why you'd have a picture of a scantily clad woman on a billboard

when you can't see her on the radio.

But anyway, it was there, and I would be tempted by those images.

And I remember going to the mall.

Now, in our mall in Peoria, there was, oh, Amber Crobby and...

Abercrombie & Fitch store. And if you know malls, you know that the pictures in Abercrombie & Fitch,

that store, the pictures and the posters in there are not good.

They're temptations. And I remember going to the store, to the mall,

and as a family, we were walking down the hallway toward Sears store,

and we walked past the store, the Abercrombie & Fitch store,

and after we passed it, my wife says,

Did you see all that?

I said, What are you talking about? She gives all those posters in that store,

they were evil. I said, No, I didn't.

And I had been praying, God, don't even let me be tempted. Don't even let me see those things.

And God did it. So sometimes he can do that. He can remove those temptations

from it. He doesn't always do that, but sometimes he can.

His desire is that we would grow through our temptation. In teaching his disciples

to pray, Jesus taught them to pray that the Father would not lead them and us

into temptation, but would deliver us from the evil one.

So since James is writing to the believers, and since God cannot and will not

tempt us, we know that James is writing about Satan's desire to lure the believer

away from the grassy bed of God's presence.

Satan does not need to lure non-believers away because, well,

he already has them in his cooler.

He doesn't need to tempt those that are already in his control.

And since it's Satan's supreme and selfish desire to defeat God and overtake

God as the Lord of the universe, Satan's desire is to steal God's followers away from God.

And this is why James is writing to the believers to be wary of Satan's tricks.

They apparently had been thinking that God was causing all of their trials and

temptations, but James continues in this theme to say,

he says, to count it all joy when you face trials of many kinds because the

testing of your faith produces perseverance and perseverance produces completeness in Christ.

So the first thing we find about temptation is that a fisherman doesn't waste

the time, waste his bait by fishing in the cooler.

The second thing we see is soft and flesh-like lures, shiny spinnerbait or stinkbait.

There's a lure for every fish.

It's interesting what James does not say, the devil made me do it.

Instead, he says, each one of us is tempted when by his own evil desire he is

dragged away and enticed.

It's as if the modern song was written by Satan, that modern song that we know

by that huge philosopher, Bob Dylan, one way or another, gonna getcha,

gonna getcha, getcha, getcha, getcha.

But Satan has never been able to force anyone—actually, that was not Bob Dylan.

Bob Dylan was, you're going to serve two masters. You'll serve one master or another.

But Satan has never been able to force anyone to surrender to temptation.

He is not—the devil can't make us do it.

We are in control of our own actions. We have a free will.

God has created each of us with a free will and a choice. It's man who gives

his will over to the evil one when he gives in to any temptation.

Satan seems to know, or at least he keeps track of—he has a big,

huge Google database—he keeps track of those evil desires that seem to entice each one of us.

Another person's evil desires might not tempt us.

We're tempted by our own evil desires.

I've said it before, but it bears repeating, the root of all sin is self.

Say that with me. The root of all sin is self.

Satan does not have to work that hard by tempting us because we are innately

a selfish creature, and we are lured to do things that please us.

Satan uses the sin that the writer of Hebrews speaks about when he says that

the evil one uses the sin that so easily entangles us,

just as the expert fisherman knows what kind of lure to use for each type of

fish on any given day and any given weather conditions.

Satan knows what kinds of temptations that we are most likely to give in to.

His desire is not just to go fishing and to drown some worms.

Satan's desire is to catch and eat us like a lion that is crouching or waiting

to devour us, as Jesus referred to in Peter.

Maybe it is with a soft and flesh-like lure.

Is it that sensual temptations that would lure you away from honoring God like

David did when he gave in to the temptation and committed adultery with Bathsheba?

Or is it that natural temptation of greed, the desire to have more and to keep more for yourself?

Someone once asked Rockefeller how much money was enough, and he simply answered more.

Never satisfied with what God has given us, we seem to want what others have as well.

Maybe that desire to buy more, have more, and keep more is causing us to sin

by not giving a complete tithe of our income to the Lord's work in the local church.

Isn't it neat that God allows us to live on 90% of what he provides for us in the first place,

and only asks us to return 10% for him to reuse in bringing honor to himself.

We don't even tip God. A normal tip is 20% of a meal, and now they're asking for 30.

We don't even tip God. He's just asking us for 10% of what he's already giving us.

And yet, that soft flesh-like lure of self says that God will not miss our 10%,

nor will he expect us to give the whole 10% on our whole income when he knows

that there are so many things that we need to do with our money.

I wonder, too, if some of us, Satan knows he can draw us away and entice us

with the shiny spinnerbaits.

You know what I'm talking about, those shiny spinnerbaits of fame and glory,

that lust for power and prominence,

that strong desire to be seen and recognized and to be the center of attention,

that intense human desire to bring glory and honor to ourselves and our accomplishment, remember?

The root of all sin is self. I wonder, too, how many people readily surrendered

to that shiny spinnerbaits of alcohol, drugs,

vulgar language, flashy cars, flashy women, flashy clothes, and star-studded erotic entertainment.

Then there are the stinkbaits that Satan seems to throw at us,

which are more enticing to some than they are to others.

Those stink baits can include gossip, and a loose and damaging tongue,

a critical and condemning spirit, a non-forgiving attitude, a persecution complex

that draws everyone down with us, a garbage-dump personality that draws out

negativity and bad news from others,

hearing and passing on everyone else's complaints about someone else in the church.

Let me repeat it again. The root of all sin is self.

Man's natural tendency since the fall of Adam is to do what is in his own self-interest.

And then third, we learn that about temptation from fishing,

it's encapsulated in the phrase, swallowed, hook, line, and sinker.

I mean, you've been a fish. You guys have gone fishing, right?

You know that happens with a fish. If you've ever fished very much at all,

you will know what I mean.

Normally, you can throw the bait out there and wait until you feel a bite.

Then you set the hook in the fish's mouth by jerking up on the rod.

Normally, the fish will just nibble around at the bait first,

trying to tear pieces off of the bait.

But if the fisherman is patient enough, and if he tempts the fish enough,

if he jiggles it around a little bit or moves it slightly, he can wait until

that fish gets a sufficient taste of the bait, and then the fish will try to

swallow that bait completely down because it thinks it's a meal.

Or sometimes the fish are biting so hungrily or actively so that they are so

agitated by the presence of the lure that they lunge at the bait.

Swallowing it hook, line, and sinker.

If you've ever seen some of the fishing shows where guys running a spinnerbait,

a top bait, running across the lake, and you see that bass come surging up out

of the water, grabbing that lure,

swallowing it deep down in its throat, even as it lunges.

We look for that. As fishermen, we long to see that.

And still there are all those times, especially with catfish,

when you let the bait drift down and settle on the ground, on the bottom of the lake or the river.

The huge catfish, that channel cat, will suck that bait into its mouth,

and slowly, one gulp at a time, he'll swallow it down deep.

The deeper the bait goes into his throat, the harder that catfish is caught.

And when a fish swallows the bait hook, line, and sinker, there is oftentimes

no way to get the lure out without ripping it out of the fish, killing the fish.

This is a picture of what James has drawn for us in verse 15 when he says,

Then when evil desire has conceived,

it gives birth to sin, and sin, when it's full grown, gives birth to death.

When we swallow those temptations, hook, line, and sinker, there is nothing left for us but death.

The scripture says that when we sin, the punishment is death.

So let me give you something else to write down in your notes,

to burn into your memory banks of your minds, and this is something that we've said over and over.

Thoughts produce feelings. Feelings produce actions.

Actions have consequences. The difference in outcomes depends on our choices.

Those evil desires that would entice us and drag us away are the thoughts that we have.

Thoughts produce feelings or emotions, and the type of emotions they produce

depends on the focus and the center of our thinking.

If our thinking is centered on ourselves and our own pleasures,

the root of all sin is self, then our thoughts will produce feeling that will

entice us away from God's presence and his glory,

feelings of euphoria or ecstasy.

These are what the self-help and self-actualization markets of today are built on.

Rugged individualism. Look out for number one. Go for the gusto.

This is the mantra of a selfish human nature.

And when evil desire is allowed to take root in us, it is like a seed that is

planted in a mother's womb. It conceives and begins to develop and grow in our thoughts.

Our lust is activated. Our emotions, our lust is activated and placed in gear,

whether it's sexual lust or just lust for more.

It begins to grow and fuel itself until it takes over, feeding on us like a

fetus feeds on the live blood of his mother.

That critical spirit, that gossip.

That lie, that sensual look,

that temptation to take a drink when we know that we have alcoholism in our past,

If left unrepented and not removed, they take root and grow,

feeding on our thoughts and feelings and the selfish desire to have our own

pleasure and have our own way.

Then when evil desire has totally consumed us, it gives birth to action,

to sin, and like that love affair with the woman that we met on an internet

chat line, or the evil word of gossip spoken that is intended to bring another

person down in destruction so it lifts us up in our own self-esteem.

That bottle of liquor that is consumed controlling us in a way that nothing else can.

That unethical business deal that is struck to be able to help us obtain more wealth.

That theft from God by holding back on our giving to the kingdom of God.

They're all actions that are the result of the real sin of giving in to the

evil desire that has been conceived in us.

And they all have consequences. Thoughts produce feelings.

Feelings produce actions. Actions have consequences. Rest assured,

every sin has consequences here and now.

But even worse than that, every sin causes death, just like the guts being ripped out of that fish.

The scripture says the wages of sin is death. It doesn't say some sin.

It says the wages of sin.

Sin is violation of God's laws. It's not living up to the glory of God.

It doesn't say the wages of some sin.

It doesn't say the wages of murderous sin or certain felony sins.

It says the wages of sin is death.

When we are tempted and drug away by our own evil desires,

and when we have given in to those temptations and they have conceived into

sin, then we are taken away from the presence of God and no longer living in

the safe shelter of God's hand.

We are removed from God's presence by that sin. We have died and,

to God. What a dreadful thought that is, especially with eternity in view.

Are we willing, for a moment's pleasure, to give up eternity with God?

I don't believe any of us would say, yes, I want to give up eternity from God.

And yet, according to James, that's exactly what we do when we swallow the bait of temptation.

And none of us would admit it, but when we allow our evil desire to even be

present themselves, we are opening ourselves to be drawn away.

Philippians chapter 4, 8 tells us to think about the things that are noble.

Philippians 4 · chapter mention

Other scriptures in Peter tells us to flee temptation, to move away from it.

And still, many try to play around the edges of the weed beds of evil desire,

seemingly dangling one foot off the cliff of eternity, testing how far we can

go without being caught up in that temptation and that sin.

I know you've heard it said before, oh, it's okay to window shop.

I just can't buy.

Too many people want to play with sin's pleasures for a while and try to stop

short of the painful consequences. But Jesus said, if you think it in your heart, it's as good as done.

The next thing, the neat thing about the verse, the wages of sin is death,

is that it doesn't end with that.

The next part of that verse says

this, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

It seems to me that the best way to avoid eternal death and separation from

a loving God is to come into a relationship, is come into God's presence, and stay there.

And we do that through Jesus Christ.

We accept Christ by faith, and we remain there by faith. No one come to the

Father except through me, Jesus said.

So let me give you a few thoughts this morning as I close the message that I

hope will make things a little simpler to understand.

You may want to write these down to remember them.

If, as James says, God is the author of every good and perfect gift and is unchanging in his nature,

then it seems to me that a sure way to avoid temptation and keep from surrendering

to evil is to remain in God's presence.

We need to know God completely and shelter under his wings. We need to seek

to bring him glory in our life and glory only in him.

We need to be satisfied and fulfilled in the presence, in the shelter of his presence.

We need to worship God and reflect on the goodness at all times,

not just Sunday morning at 1030.

We need to talk with God. We need to laugh with him. We need to sing with him.

We need to ask of him. We need to love on him, and we need to rest in him.

We need to remain in God's presence at all times.

The second thing we need to do is we need to feed on the word of God.

Jesus overcame temptations of Satan in the wilderness by knowing and feeding

on God's word. Every word.

That he was tempted by Satan when he was in the wilderness. Every word that

Jesus spoke in response to Satan's temptation was a word from God's word with

a true understanding of Scripture.

Through knowing God's word, Satan is rebuked and defeated.

If you haven't done so already, begin now to have a daily time of Bible study

where you simply read God's Word, asking Him, asking the Holy Spirit to reveal Himself to you in that.

Cherish the Word of God and digest His nature revealed in God's Word.

It's told in Scripture that we are to meditate on God's Word.

It's as if a cow regurgitating its cud to feed on it again and again and again.

Not that we physically eat the Bible, but we take that in and we meditate on

that, ruminating on that over and over and over as we go through our day.

And then finally, remain strong in the presence in the community of believers.

I know that community is difficult to have sometimes, but thank God that he

has instructed human minds to develop technology that allow us to stay in contact

with each other. Now, here we are on an extremely cold day.

We don't have everybody here in our worship, but we have people watching us

online, and we can do that in this present day.

Call or write, email, text, message your friends and family to stay in community.

And when you can do it over video chat where they can see your faces,

it's even better. But please make sure that you wash the breakfast off.

It's true that one strand is easily broken, but many strands woven together

produce an unbreakable rope.

When we are all together entwined together as one body, we are not going to be broken.

We're going to be in this together with each other. It's in the relationship

of the church, the body of believers, Christ's bride, that God provides for

our strength through the Holy Spirit.

It's in the community that we strengthen each other and encourage each other to keep from falling.

It is in community that we glorify God by knowing him and making him known to all people.

Yeah, you can worship God on your own. That's true.

But how much better when we strengthen each other and come together and share

with each other and lift each other up.

Jesus said, the greatest commandment is this, that you love the Lord your God

with all your heart, your soul, your mind, and your strength.

And the second is like it, love your neighbor as yourself.

It's in this total love for God and total surrender to God's ways that we can

have real victory over temptation. There's a song we sing, Victory in Jesus, and we think about that.

And I've told you this before that when I was working at Bayliner Marine Corporation,

we used to stand in the boat.

So they would ask me to sing some song, the other workers.

And oftentimes the one they asked us to sing is Victory in Jesus.

And so in Oklahoma, or excuse me, yeah, in Oklahoma, in Miami, Oklahoma,

in a Bayliner Marine factory in the assembly part of the plant,

you'd see people standing in boats all over the floor working or doing whatever,

and we'd start out singing, and just about the whole assembly line would be

singing Victory in Jesus. Isn't that awesome?

We have this victory in Jesus that comes over all the temptation that Satan throws on us.

And no one is drawn away and enticed unless they give in to those temptations

that Satan has given to us.

And so we need to trust our Lord and Savior to keep us from those temptations.

But the only way we can trust him is to be in his presence and feed on his word

and be together in community. Would you join me in prayer? Heavenly Father,

as we close this service, we thank you for the words of Scripture.

Oftentimes, they're really hard, especially from James and Peter and some of those.

But yet, they're true. They're messages that are meant for us to stay strong in you.

So, Father, we rebuke the evil one who is tempting us.

But even more than rebuking the evil one to tempt us, we want to surrender into

your presence. Help us, Lord, to do so.